


Quality of Mercy

by tiranog



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 18:45:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 242,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1828389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiranog/pseuds/tiranog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series takes a different path after the episode Modern Prometheus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Quality of Mercy_

Backstage, post-show, at a heavy metal concert. Not much could rival it for sheer excess. Imperial Rome in her heyday, perhaps.

The man standing vigil in the corridor had survived Rome. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the reverberations of the combined shouts of the spectators shaking the Coliseum as their favorite gladiator fought for his life, still smell the stink of the animal and slave cages, still feel the energy of all those adrenaline high mortals screaming in unison. Some things never changed. The odor of unwashed bodies was still the same as it had been in Rome all those years ago and the roar of Byron’s fans was chillingly similar to the spectators at the Coliseum. 

Byron’s performance stoked the crowd up. They were hungry for more, aching for better and bigger stimulation. Methos couldn’t count the number of times he’d heard that deafening human din. They were screaming for an encore, but in their jaded hearts, what they were really aching for was blood. Methos knew that, even if they didn’t.

He also knew that their hunger would be appeased somewhere tonight, one way or another. The minute Mike Palidini had overdosed, Methos had known that Byron’s days were numbered. The only chance Methos’ old friend might have had for survival was to leave the country, tonight, but Byron had made it plain that he wasn’t fleeing the wrath of MacLeod. Arrogance, over-confidence, ennui, a deathwish…it hardly mattered what Byron’s motivation was, the outcome was going to be the same – Methos was about to lose another friend. 

It was ironic, really, that the man who had once been known as Death would come to this strait, would plead for life. He’d killed more mortals and Immortals than most people met in a dozen lifetimes. What was one more life to Death? What mother pleading for her baby had ever stilled his blade? What lover or terrified man-child had felt his mercy? Not a one. They’d fallen before him without exception. He’d taken life indiscriminately, and gloried in the ability to do so. A man who’d claimed so many lives for his own pleasure…what right did he have to ask that a life that mattered to him be spared?

But here he was, about to plead his case to an avenger as determined as the man known as Death had been blood drunk.

It was comical, really, in that tragically unfunny way Fate had of hoisting the arrogant on their own petards.

Time was, when Methos and his brothers walked, the very Earth shook in fear of them. No one was safe from their ravages. Death never pleaded for anything. He took as he saw fit, riding with a band of killers, sadists all, who made Death’s cruelty seem a mercy. But Methos’ brothers were dead now. Those days were long gone, as was the man known as Death. All that remained was the body that had housed the Grim Reaper. The soul in that body was tired, so tired of the killing. 

And therein lay the irony. Death had had his fill of killing, but even Death was powerless to stop it. And Methos had tried. These past two hundred years, oh, how he’d tried! Over two hundred years without a Quickening. Two centuries without wasting a single mortal life. Ten thousand four-hundred weeks devoted to healing. Over seventy-two-thousand, eight-hundred days given to research and bettering the human condition…and it was all meaningless when a title he’d worn nearly three millennia ago could rear its nasty head and steal his present reality, as he’d stolen all those lives countless centuries ago.

It was a justice of sorts that he’d be brought to this strait, Methos supposed, but it hardly seemed fair. He’d buried the entire human race, or so it seemed some days. There were times when just one more loss seemed like it might break him. Alexa’s death had been almost too much to bear. To lose Byron…that would almost be as bad as forfeiting Mac’s friendship…which he may have already done. 

There was so much unresolved between MacLeod and himself since Kronos had reappeared six months ago that Methos honestly didn’t know where he stood with the Highlander anymore. Not quite enemy, but not quite friend either. Mac…tolerated his presence these days. They were trying to be friends, where they’d never had to try before. The effort was exhausting them both. It was hard to relax into a relationship when there was a powder keg of resentment and anger lurking right below the surface, just waiting to explode.

The cynic in Methos couldn’t help but feel that it served him right for violating his own long-standing, non-involvement rules. If he’d just kept to himself, retained his autonomy, he wouldn’t be hurting right now. How many times was he going to have to be taught this painful lesson? Solitude was safe, solitude meant survival….

But solitude was another one of those cosmic jokes. Like happiness and contentment, it was good in theory, but almost impossible to achieve. Methos knew that involvement of any kind equated to pain. He’d learned that his only hope of not hurting was in keeping to himself, living apart, but how long could any man, even an Immortal, live completely on his own and remain sane? 

He had spent the last three-thousand years trying not to get attached – to people, to things, to places. When you lived longer than the cultures that nurtured Man, you learned about the transience of life. You trained yourself not to care. But every now and then your humanity would rear its inconvenient head and you’d find yourself enjoying someone’s company a bit too much and, despite your best intentions, that person would get close enough to you that they became more than just another mortal or, far more dangerous, a future foe in the Game. They became that rarest of gifts – a valued friend.

You would think he’d learn after five-thousand years of this. It never worked out. It couldn’t. Every time he cared about a mortal, he’d end up holding their pain wracked bodies as they breathed their last breath, and when he committed the height of stupidity and befriended one of his own kind, situations like this inevitably occurred. He’d either find himself coming to swords with men he once called brothers, or find himself standing in some godforsaken place to plead for one friend to spare another’s life, which was his current hopeless scenario.

Methos knew it was a futile effort: Duncan MacLeod had judged Byron. All that remained was the dispensing of justice. If Ingrid Henning, who had been Mac’s lover, wasn’t able to evade MacLeod’s deadly punishment, what chance did Byron have?

Not for the first time, Methos wondered how he’d escaped that lethal katana’s blade in Bordeaux. None of his brothers had. Kronos and Kaspian had fallen to the Highlander’s sword. Silas would have, too, if Methos hadn’t taken his head himself. 

Even now, nearly six months later, the guilt of that Quickening ate at his conscience. Silas might have been a psychopathic murderer, but the giant had loved and protected Methos for countless centuries. And for Duncan MacLeod’s sake, Methos had betrayed that four millennia old relationship, taken the Quickening of a man who’d never done anything to him but love and follow him.

‘I go with the winner,’ he’d told MacLeod that horrible night when he’d been resolved to step back and allow destiny to take its course. He’d used the words as a taunt to rile McLeod’s fury, believing in his heart that they were nothing more than the statement of fact, that he’d be able to just stand back and let MacLeod and Kronos duke it out, then go with the victor. It had never occurred to him that he had a chance against his former brothers anymore. Once, four millennia ago, Methos might have had it in him to stand up against Kronos and best him in a swordfight, but as he’d told MacLeod that fateful day Kalas had come for his head, he hadn’t the fire anymore. With the passing of his thirst for blood, he’d lost his passion for fighting. Methos had known that he couldn’t stand up to Kronos or any of his brothers and win these days, so he hadn’t even tried. Not until Bordeaux, when Mac had killed Kaspian and proven that the Horsemen of the Apocalypse could, in fact, die, not until he’d been presented with an alternative that seemed worse than dying. Duncan MacLeod had been willing to die fighting the good fight that night, and, for the first time in Methos’ life, a moral obligation meant more to him than keeping his head. Methos had still known it was a losing proposition to even try to stand against Kronos and Silas, but, in the end, the betrayed hurt in Mac’s eyes had been too much to bear and Methos had….

What he’d done was sacrifice his beloved brother on the altar of Duncan MacLeod’s piety, he bitterly acknowledged.

And it hadn’t been enough. It didn’t matter that Methos had loved Silas and in killing him, he’d made a choice he’d never believed himself morally capable of. It didn’t matter that the crimes Silas had committed were performed before the birth of Christ. It didn’t matter that Silas had spent the last two hundred years hiding from the march of progress in that backwater dive Kronos and he had pulled Silas from. Two hundred years of blameless living weren’t enough to satisfy the avenging Scot. Hell, Methos wasn’t sure that his own two-thousand plus were sufficient to placate Duncan MacLeod, because, for the life of him, he didn’t understand why he still lived, why he breathed when the other Horsemen lay dead in their unmarked graves. He was painted with the same brush as his brothers. He’d done the same crimes, taken the same pleasure from it.

He’d hoped that by siding with Mac and killing Silas, he might prove where his loyalties lay, only…it hadn’t been enough. Forgiveness was as beyond MacLeod as compassion had been beyond Kronos. Duncan had spared his life that night, but he hadn’t forgiven him. 

Strangely enough, in over five millennia of life, forgiveness had never been all that important to Methos. When things didn’t work out in the past, he simply got on his horse and rode away. But he couldn’t ride away from the life he’d made here. Those first three months after Bordeaux, he’d tried, but, the damn Scot was in his blood. So, he’d returned to Paris, returned to Mac, returned to this damnable half-life of non-acceptance and suspicion.

Mac looked at him like he was a bug now. Joe was a bit more welcoming, but…it wasn’t the same there either. 

And now MacLeod was going to kill the last true friend Methos had allowed himself. 

Byron.

After Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, George Gordon, Lord Byron, was the most frustrating man Methos had ever met. Byron’s incredible genius was eclipsed only by his ego and depression. The poet had been a disaster waiting to happen from day one. The self-loathing that Byron’s poetic brilliance had masked when Methos had taken the new Immortal on as a student had grown exponentially in the intervening centuries. Where once there had been exuberance and brightness, now there was only ego and peevishness. It hurt to see Byron this way, but Methos couldn’t help but hope that time would change Byron and return the master poet to his former brilliance. 

There had been such fire there, such passion. It attracted Methos to Byron, much the same as it had drawn him to MacLeod three years ago when he had finally allowed himself to meet the young Immortal he’d observed from a distance for centuries. 

Unfortunately, drunken whirlwind days and laudanum laced, lusty nights in Byron’s bed had done nothing to prepare Methos for the Highlander’s fire. Though it hadn’t always been the case, for all the poet’s unbridled passion, Methos could take or leave the mercurial Byron now. But Duncan MacLeod, there was no leaving that. The Highlander was as pure as he was bright. MacLeod sparked a fire in Methos that he’d believed long dead, and the Scot did it without drugs or drunken orgies. There were no besotted animalistic couplings with MacLeod. In fact, there were no couplings at all. More’s the pity.

Byron and MacLeod were opposite ends of the passion spectrum, amoral debaucher and perfect hero, respectively. It only stood to reason that their meeting would be as explosive as that of matter and anti-matter. Both couldn’t exist simultaneously in the same space; so one would have to be sacrificed. Methos loved them both, but circumstance had made it plain that he couldn’t keep them both. 

Despite his undeniable attraction to the Highlander’s fiery personality, the choice in a situation such as this should have been clear as Rebecca’s crystal. He’d known Byron for over two hundred years. What were the mere three winters he’d spent at MacLeod’s side in contrast to that? He’d been both teacher and lover to the poet, where MacLeod had never been more than a platonic friend. Methos’ loyalties should have been completely undivided, but….

Methos knew what the stupid prick had been doing these past few decades. He’d heard the bragging boasts from Byron’s own lips as to how the rock star had seduced dozens of hyped-up mortals into jumping off of bridges and buildings with him, just to break the ennui, for a lark, for fun. While the man known as Death would have completely understood the power rush that came from such manipulation, Doc Polidori, Doc Benjamin, Adam Pierson and the man inside who was only Methos these days, shuddered at the waste of life. 

And, so, he’d avoided Byron, as he avoided most things that disturbed him, until such time as Byron had gone slumming at that club where Joe’s band was playing and set these events in motion. Now Methos couldn’t avoid the issue anymore, because, if he did, Byron was going to lose his damn head and even though the fool probably deserved it, Methos couldn’t just let it happen. For the sake of what Byron had once been and might be again some day when he grew out of this destructive phase, Methos had to intervene.

Methos felt MacLeod in the dim, crowded corridor long before he saw him. It was a testament to his longevity that Methos could sometimes distinguish between the signatures of Immortals he knew. Byron’s buzz was a hornets’ nest of unrest in the stadium behind him, while Duncan MacLeod…the Highlander was like ocean surf pounding against a rocky shore – clean, powerful and invigorating. MacLeod’s buzz had the feel of someone far older than his meager four-hundred years. No doubt, it was the result of all the ancients MacLeod had taken. Grayson, Nefretiri, Kalas, and Coltec’s Quickenings alone were enough to super-charge any Immortal. With Kronos and Kaspian added to the mix, Duncan MacLeod was quite possibly the strongest among them at this moment. That would change as some of the older headhunters racked up their trophy Quickenings, but a dozen newly formed Immortals couldn’t match a Kaspian or Kronos for sheer power. Right now MacLeod was possibly unbeatable, the knowledge of which made it all the harder for Methos to step into the avenger’s path. He didn’t think Mac would take his head for interfering, but wasn’t certain how far the Highlander’s forbearance could be pushed. MacLeod had been serious about it coming to swords between them the day Methos had intervened in Mac’s behalf with Keane. Though they were trying to be friends, Methos knew there were no guarantees between them anymore.

Taking a deep breath, for he knew he was in for the fight of his life, Methos stepped out from behind the shielding white arch of the stadium’s corridor, placing himself firmly in the Highlander’s way. With his long dark coat flapping like wings behind him, MacLeod resembled nothing so much as an avenging angel. His black pants, dark tee shirt and burgundy button-down shirt did nothing to distill the image. Black and red were almost universally viewed as the colors of death. Far grimmer than the shades of his clothing was the expression on MacLeod’s face - dark and foreboding as a thunderlcoud, ready to spark killing lightning at the first obstacle.

Methos shivered as the trailing ends of MacLeod’s coat settled down behind him like a murdering raven’s wings. When Mac was close enough, Methos came straight up to him and stood in the other Immortal’s personal space, standing closer than Methos did with most of his lovers, so close that should weapons be drawn, there would be as much chance of injuring one’s self as one’s opponent. 

The Highlander’s stormy face would brook no dissent. Mac was bent on revenge. The only thing that would stop him was a sword, Methos recognized with a sick heart.

The tiny corridor practically vibrated with tension as their gazes met and their uneasy truce was stretched to its limits. 

Vaguely, Methos wondered if this was it, the point where their former friendship would finally disintegrate, where they’d come to swords for real.

Knowing he only had one chance, Methos started talking fast, pleading as he hadn’t pleaded for his own life under the Highlander’s blade the day Kalas and he had tumbled into the Seine, “Paladini’s dead, I know. Byron didn’t force him to do anything.”

“That’s a load of crap,” MacLeod countered, allowing himself to be halted by Methos’ hand on the center of his chest, his displeasure bristling in every hard line of his face. “Mike’s dead because of Byron.”

“No. Mike is dead because of Mike,” Methos corrected, not knowing if he could ever make this stubborn idealist see. A man like Duncan MacLeod would never have fallen thrall to someone like Byron, anymore than he would have to Kronos. It wasn’t Byron’s fault that those he toyed with were too weak to walk away from his allure. A predator could not be blamed for its nature. Users would use, and victims would be used, until such time as the victim wised up and made himself less of a target. Mike was as much to blame in this tragic dance as Byron, perhaps more so. Byron wasn’t the only user in this situation. The kid had seen Byron as his ticket to the stars.

A pair of stagehands came through with a speaker, ordering “Make way, make way!” and MacLeod matter of factly grabbed onto Methos and hauled him into a less obstructive part of the corridor. Considering the anger between them, the intimacy of the action was startling. For all his fury, Mac wasn’t treating him like a potential threat. 

Still, the Scot’s temper flared, blasting out at Methos with, “The kid idolized him. Maybe he didn’t pull the trigger, but he sure as hell put the gun in his hand. _To live like me, you’ve got to be like me._ Come on, Methos. Mike couldn’t do that. He wasn’t Immortal.”

And once again it was all coming down to that goddamn outdated concept of honor and chivalry to MacLeod. If the playing field wasn’t equal, then it was the victor’s fault for taking advantage of a weaker opponent. It was all drivel. Survival was the bottom line. It didn’t matter how you got through it, only that you did. The only place the world worked on those high principles was in MacLeod’s head, but the Highlander would never see that. 

“Which is not Byron’s fault,” Methos reminded, racing to catch up as his disgusted friend brushed past him. “Mac, Mac, WAIT! Think! Think about the poetry. Think about the music he’s made. Think about the music that he will still make! You’re going to kill all that as well?”

MacLeod’s respect for art was the only thing he could think of to appeal to at this moment. Morals were out of the question, for Byron had never had any. Right and wrong wouldn’t work, because even though he believed every argument he was making to MacLeod, Methos still knew in his heart that what Byron had done was wrong. It wasn’t Byron’s fault that Mike was weak, but Mike’s weakness didn’t necessitate Byron’s capitalizing upon it. They had both chosen to behave as they had. And it looked like they were both going to die from the consequences.

With ten small words, MacLeod took the wind out of Methos’ sails. “And what about Mike? What music could he have made?” Mac asked, staring at him, both eyebrows raised as he drove home his point.

Silas’ huge battle-axe couldn’t have cut his legs out from under him any more effectively. He’d seen Mike Paladini play. The kid had had all the potential of a Byron or a DeVinci.

And suddenly, Methos had no more arguments left. Mike’s music had been stilled forever, as had the art of all the other fools who’d followed Byron to their deaths. Methos still didn’t think that Mac should do what he was hell bent to do, but he didn’t have it in him to play the Devil’s advocate anymore. 

Their gazes locked, the moment stretched. With nothing left to say, and the full knowledge of what his acquiescence was going to cost him and the world, Methos lowered his gaze and hugged his arms around himself, feeling an utter failure.

Though the cacophony of Byron’s solo was shrieking through the hall around them, it was the words to an old Queen song that played through his mind at that moment. _Another one bites the dust._ It didn’t matter who would win or lose in the upcoming challenge. Either way, Methos was going to lose someone dear to his heart.

Without another word, MacLeod brushed by him.

And, gods help him, Methos let him pass unchallenged this time. Even though he knew Byron would die by his doing so. Duncan MacLeod had asked something of him, and he once again found himself powerless to refuse. It was that Valicourt debacle all over again, only this time Methos knew the price of acquiescence. For less than a handful of silver, he traded the life of his oldest remaining comrade, gave Byron over to his death as surely as if he’d turned him over to Torquemada or James Horton.

There was no gratitude or acknowledgement of the sacrifice Methos made. MacLeod stormed past him with all the arrogance of the self-righteous, those whose morals never wavered, those who had never raped or killed or maimed for the fun of it, those perfect few who had never had to learn their lessons the hard way.

Methos, who’d never learned easily, turned on his heel and left the scene. 

All he could think about as he skulked off into the shadows was, if their positions had been reversed, would Duncan MacLeod have just stepped aside and allowed an avenger, no matter how justified, to take the head of one of his closest friends.

He was four blocks away from the concert stadium when the answer slammed into him like a runaway truck. 

A voice from the near-past, seemed to echo down the foggy Parisian streets. 

_Cassandra, I want him to live!_

The words were indelibly etched in his consciousness. He’d been on his knees in a puddle sobbing his heart out over Silas’ death when he’d heard them, but even at the time, Methos had recognized the inherent threat in the declaration. 

Faced with that same dilemma, the Highlander had chosen to protect his own. 

And, once again, Methos felt as though he’d failed some unspoken test. He couldn’t even fathom MacLeod’s high-flung morals, let alone live up to them. He couldn’t help but feel that by giving into Mac’s demand, he’d once again disappointed the Highlander on some level. 

So where did that leave him? 

In the same limbo he’d inhabited since he’d walked away from MacLeod in that old Bordeaux churchyard on the morning after the apocalypse, Methos tried to lose himself in the thickening fog.

********************

Methos hadn’t wanted to go to the bar where Joe was playing, hadn’t wanted to be there…afterward, but his feet led him to Maurice’s all the same.

He harbored no doubts as to whom the winner would be in this particular confrontation. Byron had longed for self-immolation for decades; the poet’s pride had simply restricted him from throwing the final battle. Methos knew what easy pickings Byron would be for someone like MacLeod. Hell, even Amanda’s young student, Michelle, could have taken Byron if she set her mind to it. The man was dead inside, with nothing left to live for. Taking the poet’s head would almost qualify as assisted suicide.

Being a Monday night, the club was officially closed when Methos arrived. Still, there were lights on and he could hear a familiar electric guitar crying its pain out into the night. Methos dumped his coat on the rack by the door and walked past the dark and empty tables, bee-lining for the bar. It was buried under the orderly upturned barstools. 

Joe seemed to be the only one in the place. He was sitting up on the stage in a single, dramatic spotlight, playing to a roomful of shadows, only his guitar and a bottle of Johnny Walker for company. 

One look at the mortal’s face and he knew that Dawson had gotten the news about his prodigy. As he often did when the events of the world became too much for him, Joe was consoling himself with his music. The squealing blues cried out Joe’s despair with chilling efficiency. 

Sometimes, Methos wondered what form his own grief would take if he gave it voice like this…but music required a passion that was beyond him these days.

“You heard?” Joe quizzed once Methos was close enough so that he didn’t need to shout. 

Methos nodded. 

Heard? He’d discovered the body when he’d gone to Byron’s penthouse to talk sense into him earlier this evening. From what he’d been able to tell, the kid had left Joe outside the club, gone directly to Byron’s and shot up with some of the rock star’s ever-present party favors. Heroin was a lot different than coke. It was hard to stuff enough cocaine up your nose to kill you in one hit, but if you made a miscalculation with horse, you didn’t get a second mistake. It was tragic that Mike hadn’t waited till he’d come down from the coke and booze before progressing to the granddaddy of all habits. 

Methos still found it difficult to believe that Byron would have allowed the kid to shoot up when Mike was already so wasted, but the Byron who’d walked into Maurice’s two nights ago was a far different man than the one who’d risked his life to free his beloved Greece from the Turks. Or perhaps not so different. Byron had always liked to push the odds. 

Part of him felt like he should apologize to Joe, but how could he? He was no more responsible for Byron’s actions than Byron was for Mike’s. 

Reading the silent accusation that Joe wasn’t quite able to hide, Methos’ anger surfaced. “Don’t worry, Joe. MacLeod’s gone to settle the score.”

“And you disapprove?” Joe’s expression made it plain that Methos’ attitude was incomprehensible.

Tired of being the outsider, Methos leaned his weary weight against the bar and gave this man, whom he still thought of as his friend, despite all the suspicion, the truth. “There’s an old saying about people who live in glass houses not throwing stones. It’s not my place to judge Byron or anyone.”

“Even when they cost innocent kids their lives?” Joe demanded.

Methos sighed. “I’m sorry Mike is dead, but Byron can’t be blamed for an overdose. He didn’t shove the needle into Mike’s arm. Mike put it there himself.”

“And Byron gave it to him.”

“Maybe he did,” Methos allowed. “But Byron could have given that same needle to you and you wouldn’t have used it, Joe. It was Mike’s choice.”

“And that makes it right?” Joe argued.

“There is no right and wrong in a situation like this. Mike knew what he was doing when he pushed that plunger. You wouldn’t have done it. MacLeod wouldn’t have done it.”

“What about you?” Joe harshly challenged.

“Not all of us can be perfect,” Methos sneered, so tired of suffering his friends’ barely concealed contempt that he didn’t even care anymore what was thought of him. He just wanted to shock and hurt, to do something within this millennium to justify the cold shoulders he’d been getting these last few months. 

“You mean you’ve…”

He didn’t let Dawson finish. “I’ve been around a long time. There’s not much I haven’t tried.”

“It doesn’t seem your style,” Joe remarked, looking more curious than judgmental now.

Methos didn’t fool himself for a second. He knew he’d aroused the Watcher’s professional curiosity. MacLeod was just as bad, for different reasons. They were both so eager for some sagely illumination from the ancient past that they’d suffer one of the Horsemen for these tidbits of information.

For once, he was tempted to explain himself, to let Joe have a glimpse of how the past really was, but…how to begin?

Methos thought of the laudanum-dazed summer spent with Byron at the Villa Diodoti on Lake Geneva and all the other places Methos had followed the man. How could he possibly convey how totally enthralled he’d been with Gordon’s genius back then? Should he tell Joe that he’d had a homosexual affair with his student, that their relationship ended so badly that Methos had become an historical laughing stock? Should he mention the laudanum parties that had made the psychedelic parties of the 1960s look tame? Should he talk about Byron’s poetry and zest for life or relate the bouts of depression, violent tendencies, and self-hate that had finally driven them apart?

In five-thousand years Methos had met few with George Gordon’s flair. Byron had been so much larger than life. It only stood to reason that he’d have flaws as big. The drugs, the orgies, the bestiality, the barely suppressed violence…Methos didn’t know how he could expose these things without making Joe think he was more depraved than the mortal already believed him to be. Sometimes Methos didn’t understand himself what had made him party to all that. The cruelties of ancient Rome had cured him of so many of those excesses and yet…Byron had moved parts of his soul that Methos had spent millennia struggling to subdue. As much as he’d deplored some of what Byron had done, the poet had made him feel more alive than he had in centuries. But how to convey all that? 

It was like trying to describe the color red to someone who’d been blind their whole life.

Joe hadn’t been there. He couldn’t understand. No one could. But they could judge. Oh, how they could judge.

“Death doesn’t suit my style,” Methos snapped at last, angry that he couldn’t take the chance, that he couldn’t allow himself to be truly known.

“Huh?” Joe questioned.

“A stoned Immortal is a dead Immortal. I don’t have MacLeod and your high-flung morals for doing the things I’ve done. If I didn’t indulge to Byron’s degree, it was for my own reasons.”

“Isn’t it always? You have a hidden agenda for everything you do,” Joe shot back.

“Don’t we all?” Methos challenged. “A cynical mind would suggest that you’re friends with us because it makes your job as Watcher that much easier.” 

“I’m not your Watcher,” Joe snapped back, rubbing at his gray beard.

It was on the tip of his tongue to strike out with ‘You’re not my friend anymore either,’ but he managed to keep the self-pitying comment in. He didn’t have so many friends left that he could afford to go flushing them from his life in a fit of pique. It wasn’t Joe’s fault that Methos’ past had failed to live up to his high expectations.

Besides, it wasn’t exactly true that Dawson was no longer his friend. Joe mightn’t be as trusting of him, but Dawson still acted the part of confidant and kept Methos’ secret. Methos didn’t know another man who would have protected his identity after what had happened last spring. It was one thing to pretend that you didn’t know that the mild mannered scholar working on the Methos Chronicles was really the oldest Immortal himself. It was quite another to keep silent about one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse being a Watcher. In the black depression following the taking of his brother’s Quickening, Methos had resigned from the Watchers and disappeared before Dawson could out him. He’d returned to Paris on the sly, expecting to be the object of a Watchers’ witch hunt, but…his reception had been almost anti-climatic. No one had been looking for him; no one even knew what almost happened in Bordeaux. Like MacLeod, Joe hadn’t thrown him to the wolves.

But Dawson hadn’t forgiven him, anymore than MacLeod had. And somehow, this suspicious toleration hurt more than an outright denunciation would have. 

Methos nodded at Dawson’s comment about not being his Watcher and turned towards the bar, squeezing between two of the upturned stools. Weary, he lowered his head to his folded arms.

“You, ah, really care about this Byron dude, huh?” The unvoiced ‘why’ was implicit in Dawson’s tone. 

“He was my friend.” Unwilling to abide this casual probing, Methos bit back with, “I imagine you felt quite the same when he was hunting Andrew Cord.”

There was no need to specify which ‘he’ they were talking about. It was a fact of life that everything about them both inevitably led back to Duncan MacLeod. Dawson for the obvious reason that he was MacLeod’s Watcher. His own reasons were far more nebulous.

“Touché. You are a vicious bastard -- aren’t you?” Joe casually remarked

“The truth hurts.”

“What would you know about the truth?”

He’d had enough of it. You could only be a whipping boy for so long before you grabbed the rawhide and struck back. Methos swung around to face Joe with every bit of the hurt and anger he’d been suppressing these past six months blazing in his heart. “I never lied to you, Joe. And I only lied to him once, about important stuff.”

“Once,” Joe repeated his left brow climbing his forehead, his complete disbelief palpable.

It shouldn’t have, but the doubt still hurt. Normally, he wouldn’t explain, but Methos found himself wanting to be known, wanting to be understood. “When Cassandra showed up at the dojo, I pretended I didn’t know her. That was the only time I outright deceived him. And I never lied like that to you.” 

“But when were you ever honest?”

“About?”

“Who you are, for starters,” Joe grumbled.

“What would you have had me do, Joe?” his sarcasm got the better of him. “Walk up to him when Kalas was hunting my head and say, ‘Hi, I’m one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, care to join forces?’”

“It’s not like you haven’t had three years to.…”

“To what? Come clean to him?” Methos demanded. “Do you honestly think he’d have had anything to do with me if he’d known the truth any earlier?”

“It would’ve been better coming from you,” Joe insisted.

“It did come from me. For the last three years I’ve been warning you both about the danger of making assumptions about me.”

“What do you mean?” Joe asked.

“From the start, he kept trying to push me up on that pedestal that’s been empty since Darius’ death. I  
kept telling him all along, telling you both, that I wasn’t fit for the role, but you both kept.…”

“You’re not pretending to compare yourself to Darius here; are you?” 

The thinly veiled contempt snapped something inside of him. “What do you know of Darius? You never met the man. I did, Joe. If he’d been alive three-thousand years ago, he would have ridden with the Horsemen. He commanded the Goths. Fifteen hundred years ago he sacked and raped his way across known civilization, destroying everything in his path. If you don’t believe me, go talk to Marcus Constantine. Darius was no different than any of us until he took Myrdidd’s head at the gates of Paris.”

The minute he said it, he knew he’d proffered too much information. All Watchers were by nature historians. Dawson recognized the legendary figure’s Welsh name almost instantly. 

“You mean _the_ Myrdidd? He was real?” Joe gaped, predictable as the tide.

And this was why he could never speak honestly to Joe or even Mac about these things. They were so enamored with the legends that it was impossible to convey what it was really like living with these demigods. “As real as I am. And I hated Darius after he took Myrdidd’s head just as much as MacLeod hated Horton.”

“You knew _the_ Merlin?”

Methos sighed. Just once, he wished that his friends would surprise him, that for once in his existence, it wouldn’t be the brushing shoulders with history that piqued their interest, but the effect those events had on himself. But it was always “What was he/she really like?” rather than “Watching your teacher get his head chopped off by the Visigoths must’ve hurt like hell.” 

Catching himself falling into the MacLeod syndrome of demanding a perfectly fair and honorable world, Methos snapped himself out of his self-pity and sarcastically evaded, “In five-thousand years you get to know a lot of people, Joe.”

“There, that’s exactly what I was talking about before,” Joe complained, struggling with his guitar as he shifted in his chair. His prosthetics were no doubt hurting him again.

“What?”

“You drop some little tidbit like having known Merlin and then refuse to say anything else about it,” Joe all but accused.

“What’s there to say?” Methos shot back, equally annoyed.

“The truth, the whole story, not just some vague reference that leaves us wondering whether you were friends with the man or the Immortal who took his Quickening.”

“I didn’t take his Quickening. Darius did.” Methos knew that he was being churlish, but he couldn’t help it. They all acted like it was so easy to relate these things. Merlin, Caesar and their like might all be just history to Joe, but to Methos they were people he’d known as well as he did Dawson. 

“There you go again!” 

“What would you have me say, Joe? That I loved the man and watched him die as he tried to reason with a pack of blood drunk marauders? That I came a hair’s breath away from becoming Death again and loping off Darius’ head as he knelt there in Myrdidd’s blood? That I killed twenty-three of Darius’ followers with Myrdidd’s walking stick in a berserker frenzy while the lightning of his Quickening was still flashing around us? That I wouldn’t be alive today if that Quickening hadn’t changed Darius and he hadn’t stopped the man you knew as Grayson from taking my head after his troops finally subdued me? Should I tell you how I tried to kill Darius no fewer than thirteen times during the next century, even though I knew he was no longer the man who’d killed my friend? Is that what you want to hear?”

The shock in Joe’s suddenly pale face told him that he’d more than made his point. As usual, there was no sense of victory. He only felt guilty for losing patience with his friend’s very natural curiosity. Who wouldn’t want to know the truth behind the legends? It wasn’t Joe’s fault that Methos couldn’t offer him the perfect past that jived with the shining tales of honor and fairy tales that history had left as Methos’ peers’ legacy. All he had was the truth, and they never wanted to hear that. 

“I’m sorry, Joe. That was uncalled for,” he said at last, almost squirming under the emotions churning in those vivid hazel eyes. 

Abruptly feeling too known, too exposed, Methos turned back to the bar and lowered his head onto his crossed arms. 

Another charming trip down memory lane, that’s all he’d needed to improve his mood. Sometimes he almost envied MacLeod’s amnesiac friend, Cochrane. It must’ve been like Nirvana to leave all the deaths behind and start anew.

“It’s all like that for you, isn’t it?” Joe asked gently from the stage behind him, the compassion that had first drawn Methos to the mortal shining through the man’s own pain.

He’d thought that Joe would be horrified by the concept that he’d tried to murder MacLeod’s hallowed St. Darius, but all he could hear was sympathy in that gravelly voice. It was quite possibly the first kindness he’d had from either of his closest friends since Bordeaux.

The unexpected gentleness shattered something inside him. The tears of frustration and remorse did their best to squeeze their way out between his clenched eyelids. He fought to hold them back. MacLeod and Dawson already thought him a sociopath. He didn’t need them viewing him as a crybaby as well. He hated when his emotions got the better of him like this, but it was horrible living as an object of suspicion to the two men he respected most in this age. All he wanted was for things to be the way they were between them all before Kronos showed up.

But the realist in him knew that was never going to happen again. Joe might learn to accept him; but, for all his goodness, forgiveness wasn’t a part of Duncan MacLeod’s nature. 

Lost in pain, both present and past, Methos didn’t lift his head or answer Joe’s question and after a while, Dawson started playing again.

The mournful six string wailed into the night, keening its loss like a banshee. If Byron had thought Palidini good, he should have heard Joe tonight. But Byron would never hear Joe play again, or anyone else for that matter. 

His grief closing in around him, Methos pretended not to feel the burning streaks of liquid dripping down his cheeks as he hunched over that bar with his face shielded, waiting. 

Stars knew, it probably wouldn’t take that long. It wasn’t as though Byron were any match for the Highlander. How long could it take the man who had brought down the Horsemen of the Apocalypse to behead an effete poet?

But as the minutes ticked past and MacLeod failed to show, a prickle of unease shivered down Methos’ spine. Surely, MacLeod would come to Joe afterwards to assure Dawson that justice had been done. Didn’t the knight in shining armor always return to kneel at his liege lord’s feet after he’d attained his quest?

The knight did, if he were able, if he weren’t lying in some deserted warehouse with his severed head sightlessly watching his truncated body from across the room.

Damn. It wasn’t possible. MacLeod was the strongest among them. There was no way that a hyped-up punk rock star would best a warrior who’d trained for over four-hundred years. MacLeod had beaten Grayson, Kalas, and Kern, not to mention two of the Horsemen. There was no way Byron could beat Mac…in a fair fight.

Methos’ concern morphed into outright anxiety at the thought.

He’d taught Byron to fight. The poet might be weak, but what he lacked in physical prowess, he more than made up for in intelligence and ruthless cunning. 

As so often happened to their kind, Methos found himself slipping back in time to one of Byron and his first sparring matches. Methos could almost hear his cautions ringing hollowly through the cavernous salon as he tried to drive their importance home to his stubborn new student, ‘You cannot brawl with them or try to meet them on their terms. They will all be stronger and bigger than you. You must be prepared for that and take precautions. A stiletto or a pistol can be a great equalizer.’

His dark curls disheveled and his sweat-sheened face glowing from exertion, Byron was still young enough at that time to ask, ‘Is that allowed? It doesn’t seem quite sporting.’

‘This isn’t a sport or a game. This is your life. If you can avoid a challenge, do so at all costs. Run, hide, don’t show…whatever it takes,’ Methos stressed.

“They’ll brand me a coward,’ the greatest Romantic Poet of all time argued.

‘What matters it what they think of you? A coward lives to fight another day. Heroes are cold in their graves by sunset. This isn’t about pride. It’s about survival. You run when you can, but if you are forced to fight, you fight to win. Fair is for fools, dead fools. Survival is the only thing that counts. It doesn’t matter how. You get them down and you take their head.’

Recalled to the present, to the chic Parisian night club, Methos wondered if Fate were about to throw him another curve ball. Were his words going to come back to haunt him yet again? Byron could never beat MacLeod in an honest fight, but if the poet shot the Highlander in the head….

Damn, he would have to think about something like that.

Pushing the horrible image of Mac being shot in the back and beheaded by his former lover firmly from his mind, Methos let Joe’s music vibrate through him. As he huddled there, shielded from sight by the spindly legs of the surrounding barstools, he hardly knew what to hope. 

How did you choose between friends? 

He was delusional, he know, but there was a sentimental part of Methos that prayed Mac would be merciful, that Byron would give his word to mend his ways as Gregor had and MacLeod would let him live….

Trying to sell himself that unlikely scenario, Methos straightened up, reached out for a bottle and glass and made his slow way to one of the dark wood tables near Joe. He’d barely settled when he felt it.

The buzz hit before the approaching Immortal even entered the club -- raging surf, roaring over a recently submerged hornets’ nest. 

Damn…so much for delusions.

His stinging eyes squeezed shut to block out the dozens of memories flashing through his mind. His affair with Byron might have ended badly, but it had been based on genuine affection, unlike his longer, more complex relationships with Kronos and Kaspian. It had taken them a few decades, but Byron and he had managed to get past the bad feelings of their breakup and rekindle their friendship…the friendship Duncan MacLeod had just snuffed out like a candlewick. 

What troubled him even more than his personal loss was the overwhelming knowledge that one of the greatest minds ever born had been lost today. There would be no more _She walks in beauty like the nights_ , no more heavy metal megahits…only silence where Byron had brought joy to millions. 

Thanks to the perfect Immortal. 

Methos killed the memories and pulled himself together. He might be a coward and a betrayer, but he still had some pride left. Duncan MacLeod would not see him cry today; though, Lord knew, that the loss of the genius George Gordon had been was enough to make the very stars weep in despair.

Mac entered the club, parting the red curtains at the door with an unconscious theatric flair. In his long dark coat and severe expression, MacLeod was the personification of menace.

Even from across the room Methos could feel the energy from the Quickening sparking through his friend. MacLeod’s flowing coat hid his lower body, so Methos couldn’t tell if the Highlander had stopped along the way to deal with the residual arousal that was part and parcel to taking another Immortal’s lifeforce into one’s self. It was a normal reaction, none of them could avoid it, but tonight Methos found himself furious at the thought of MacLeod getting off on Byron’s death.

Knowing the danger of such anger between their kind, Methos purposefully kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t help but take a long enough look at Mac to visually assure himself that MacLeod had all of his parts intact, before grabbing the bottle and glass and pouring himself a double. 

Beer was his drink of choice, but tonight he needed the solace of something stronger. Byron’s voice might have been easy to still, but his memory was going to take more than the stroke of a sword to vanquish.

He could feel MacLeod, standing there, staring at him with all of Byron’s memories moving through him. It was all Methos could do to hold that gaze and keep his face schooled. Mac had just gotten another eyeful of his past. Not as sordid as the memories MacLeod had taken from Kronos, but fairly damning in themselves no doubt.

But right now, Methos didn’t particularly care about the potential embarrassment. All he knew was the pain of losing yet another person he cared about.

Joe stopped playing as he noticed MacLeod.

Methos looked down at the shiny tabletop, waiting for the inevitable postmortem. Joe would ask how it went, and the Perfect Immortal would tell how he’d rid the world of yet another undesirable. 

But the seconds stretched into minutes and Joe didn’t ask, nor did MacLeod offer any details. 

Out of respect for his own feelings, Methos belatedly recognized. Not understanding why that small thoughtfulness choked him up so, Methos downed his double, doing his best not to notice how his hand shook.

Mac was still staring at him. 

Although he was trying hard not to think about this issue, Methos couldn’t help but wonder what MacLeod saw when he looked at him now. Was the Highlander still sifting through Byron’s lifeforce, seeing Methos with the memories of all the nights Byron had fucked him vivid in his mind? Or was it Kronos’ sadistic sexual degradations filtering the moral Scot’s view of him tonight? 

After another few moments of that insufferable observation, MacLeod wordlessly moved to the bar to fetch a glass.

Methos unconsciously tensed at the Highlander’s approach, but MacLeod paused only long enough to fill his glass from Methos’ bottle before settling at the tiny table that was pushed up against Methos’, close, but not invasive. 

MacLeod’s choice was a little surprising. Methos had expected to be shunned, but Mac seemed to be closing ranks with him, comforting by proximity, the way Methos had tried to after the Highlander had taken Ingrid Henning’s head.

For the first time in their friendship, Methos wasn’t sure he wanted Mac that close. His anger over Byron’s death was still too fresh. The fact that he could feel his ex-lover’s lifeforce sparking through Mac’s dense form like so much heat lightning did nothing to ease Methos’ aching heart. The greatest poet the Earth had seen in five-thousand years, lost because of a youth’s reckless infatuation and an avenger’s unforgiving ire. 

He didn’t look at the too-handsome man beside him. Instead, Methos sat there trying to ignore MacLeod’s brooding presence while he kept the memories at bay. 

Methos was struck by the weird feel of the scene. To an outsider, they would look like three old friends just sitting around shooting the breeze. Once it would have been true, but not tonight. There was too much discord between them.

Knowing only one way to get past this pain, Methos refilled his glass. The booze bit going down, but its warmth spread immediately through him, filling those icy parts left by Byron’s loss and Mac’s responsibility. Slowly, the liquor took the edge off his anger. 

It was one of the benefits to being the world’s oldest man. When you lived as long as he had, everything fell into perspective a lot sooner than it did when you were part of an age. You still felt the pain, but there was an understanding of the inevitability of death that muted the resentment. The bottom line was survival and, as long as he kept his head, Methos knew there was little he couldn’t endure.

Like everything else, this too would pass.

His years at Hellene’s greatest philosophers’ knees had left him too analytical by far. Where once he would have responded passionately to tonight’s events, now Methos took the time to think about them, to dissect cause and effect. In retrospect, he could see that Byron had been headed for this end for decades now. MacLeod was merely another player in Fate’s cosmic farce. Being angry with Mac for killing Byron was as pointless as demanding constancy from the profligate poet had been. Both Immortals could only follow their natures. Byron would indulge in excess until it cost him his head and MacLeod would avenge misused innocents until he encountered an evil powerful enough to best him. With the whiskey’s buffering help, today’s events transformed into just another of his thousand bitter regrets.

When he thought he could look at Mac without any residual resentment bleeding over, Methos commented into the subdued room, “Matter and anti-matter. Byron knew that, too. His life had become one long tragedy.”

It was a peace offering, of sorts.

“We all know how those end,” MacLeod replied, completely ungiving.

No remorse, no regret…MacLeod didn’t appear to have a single doubt that what he’d done was right. All that poetry lost forever, and the priggish Highlander didn’t seem the least bit disturbed. Methos wondered what it must feel like to be that sure, that certain of anything. 

So, they sat there with that horrible silence where words should be, listening to Joe cry his heart out in a performance that would have made Clapton or Page green with envy. 

“Methos?” MacLeod said, perhaps a full twenty minutes later.

The hair at the back of his neck pricked up at the uncertain tone. 

“Yes?” Methos answered, staring down at his own image reflecting up at him off the highly polished tabletop. 

“When Byron first came in here the other night, he called you ‘Doc’. Was that Doc Polidori?” 

From the moment MacLeod had quoted that poem to him, Methos had known he was lost. If the Highlander had known that much of Byron, he would doubtless be familiar with the man’s personal history as well.

He’d wondered when it would come to this. To be honest, he’d been expecting a question like it from either Joe or MacLeod since Byron had shown up. Although Dawson didn’t interrupt his solo, Methos could almost feel the mortal’s concentration leaving his music to focus on their conversation.

Deciding to forestall playing twenty questions, Methos quietly offered, “Yes and yes.”

“To?” MacLeod wasn’t playing dumb; he appeared genuinely perplexed.

“Yes to the historical accuracy of the rumors. You’ve got his Quickening now. You know what it was. What more do you want from me?” Methos hoarsely demanded, pushed to his limit. 

MacLeod had the grace to look uncomfortable, not quite the self-assured avenger anymore. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“Understand what?” Methos challenged. While it was true that the images received during a Quickening were more flashes than actual memories, anything Mac might have taken from Byron regarding himself was probably pretty straightforward. They were either partying, arguing, or fucking. 

“I thought I knew you. None of this….”

“I can’t and won’t apologize for the past, MacLeod,” Methos spat out, banging down his glass with far more force than he intended. He swung around to face the other Immortal. He was so tired of entertaining these futile hopes of acceptance. This judgmental man was never going to be his friend again. If MacLeod couldn’t abide a little homosexual frolicking with Byron, what chance did he have of ever being forgiven his years with Kronos? What was he doing wasting his time here? 

“No one’s asking you to--”

“No?” Methos cut in. “Maybe not in so many words, but with every look you’ve been silently accusing me since Bordeaux!”

“Maybe I just don’t know who you are anymore,” MacLeod quietly offered. 

And finally, it was out in the open. They’d tried to discuss it once in the Luxemburg Gardens when MacLeod was on his way to meet Stephen Keane and then again after the situation was settled, but that day in the gardens there had been too much resentment between them and later Amanda’s presence had made free speech all but impossible. Afterwards…it seemed that they avoided each other now or did their best to keep everything on a superficial level. The last was never a wise move among their kind. 

“I’m the same man I always was.”

“Are you?” All of MacLeod’s own frustrations seemed to come pouring out now that they’d finally broached the subject, and Methos had to admit to himself that there was a certain relief to finally be freed from the oppression of that accusative silence. “The Methos I thought I knew wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t….”

“He wasn’t real, MacLeod. Do you really believe that a cowardly bookworm could survive off Holy Ground for five-thousand years if that were all there was to him?”

“So it was all a lie, then? Every moment we were together was an act?” 

The only time he’d seen Mac look more hurt was the night he’d viscously revealed his past to the Highlander. As much as tonight’s event angered him, he didn’t want to hurt or alienate MacLeod now. All he wanted was the impossible, to turn back time. So, Methos tried to make peace with, “None of it was an act, Mac. It just wasn’t the entire truth.”

“And what is the entire truth?” MacLeod argued, back in his role of judge and executioner.

Methos couldn’t stand it another minute.

“What do you care about the truth? You’ve already judged me on actions that took place over three-thousand years ago,” he accused, unable to keep his own sense of hurt from flavoring the words. Their friendship was all but dead. There wasn’t any point in mincing words anymore.

“Actions that you bragged you enjoyed! The Methos I thought I knew, he could never have taken pleasure from the killing of innocents.”

The sorrow and absolute confusion in those huge, puppy dog eyes of MacLeod’s stung almost more than the cold shoulder had. Methos had no idea how to apologize for his past or the savage way he’d revealed it to MacLeod. When he’d made that cruel disclosure in Seacouver, he’d meant only to drive MacLeod from him, to keep his friend clear of Kronos for as long as possible. Methos hadn’t considered the future repercussions, because he hadn’t believed he had a future. Now he was left with the shattered remnants of MacLeod’s broken faith, and no idea if he could rebuild it. If he couldn’t, there was nowhere they could go from here. He’d have to leave MacLeod for good. Their kind couldn’t abide uncertainty. If an Immortal wasn’t a friend, he was a foe. There was no middle ground. 

Methos had sworn to himself from the start that he would never be this man’s enemy. He’d watched the Highlander for more than four-hundred years now. If he had to choose which of their kind would be the ultimate survivor, MacLeod would be his choice, even before himself. 

Normally, he didn’t explain or make excuses. People either took him as he was or left him. It never particularly mattered to Methos which they chose, because there was always someone else to replace them. But MacLeod wasn’t replaceable, nor was Joe Dawson. 

So, in the end, Methos found himself trying to rebuild the bridges of communication that had crumbled with Cassandra’s arrival into their lives. Taking a deep breath, he softly said, “The Methos you know no longer takes pleasure from those kinds of deeds, MacLeod.”

“And that makes up for it?” MacLeod questioned with his short-tempered morality.

“Ease up, Mac,” Joe counseled from behind them. 

“He once bragged about killing ten thousand people, Joe,” MacLeod argued, unable to get past that fact, just as Methos had known he wouldn’t.

That judgmental tone touched off Methos’ own fury, as it had that day in Seacouver. 

“Not ten thousand,” Methos corrected. “If you’re going to judge me on this, be accurate. Ten thousand was a conservative estimate. Do the math, MacLeod. The Horsemen rode for over a thousand years. We hit a village a month, sometimes two, killing anywhere from fifty to a couple of hundred people at a time. It wasn’t just straightforward murder. There was torture and rape, the whole gauntlet. There is no crime I haven’t committed, not a one,” Methos emphasized, staring at each man in turn until he was sure they understood the scope of what he was talking about here.

He got his point across.

His throat tight, Methos looked away from Joe’s bloodless expression. He didn’t dare MacLeod’s again. He’d seen that look before. The sickened disgust and horror twisting the chiseled perfection of MacLeod’s face as he shoved Methos up against his Landrover that night in Seacouver six months ago was forever etched in his memory. Its shadow was there now, darkening that beautiful, strong profile. 

So, Methos gulped down another shot of courage, wincing as it scalded his throat, trying very hard not to notice the shocked silence roaring around him. He reached for the whisky bottle to refill his glass immediately after he finished. The hand pouring the shot was trembling so badly that liquor sloshed all over his reflection on the table.

“Why are you telling us this?” Dawson’s gruff voice finally broke the unbearable silence.

“Aside from the fact that you asked? You both said that you wanted the truth. That is the truth. Complete and unadorned,” even to Methos’ own ears his reply sounded cold and uncaring. It was quite a feat, considering that he was about to fall apart inside. He’d never been this blunt with anyone. Well, at least not in two millennia or so.

Joe’s next comment revealed the remarkable individual he truly was. “That happened what? Three-thousand years ago?”

“More or less,” Methos answered.

“How much of it is still true?” Joe asked. “You’re a different man now. You said you don’t take pleasure from…that kind of thing anymore….”

“It’s all still true, Joe. MacLeod is right. Nothing makes up for it. I can’t ever undo the things I did,” Methos wearily insisted, wondering if either man appreciated what he was trying to tell them here. George Gordon in his prime might have been able to vocalize Methos’ feelings, but the oldest Immortal didn’t have the words for it, didn’t know how to tell them that his guilt eclipsed even Byron’s insatiable hunger on a daily basis and that there was no reprieve from it. Whisky didn’t help, nor did narcotics. Sometimes, he could escape into the ascetic world of academia for a while. Sex was the best distraction, but even there…no one he’d slept with or loved ever knew his past, so, in a way, it wasn’t really him they were sleeping with, but some role he was playing, which only added loneliness to the guilt.

“So what is this – a play for sympathy?” MacLeod suspiciously suggested.

Gods help him, the sneer in his former friend’s voice hurt more than any of Kronos’ tortures ever could.

“I know better than to look to you for sympathy, Highlander. Make no mistake. I’m not a victim here. I never was,” Methos bitterly replied, so hollowed out right now that he didn’t care if MacLeod sent him to join his brothers.

After another weighty silence, Joe asked, “What made you stop?”

“What?” Methos was so surprised by the normal tone of Dawson’s voice that he didn’t immediately get the content.

“Obviously, you’re not the same person you were then. Why’d you leave the Horsemen?” Joe specified.

Methos glanced at MacLeod, a little surprised. He was sure the Highlander must have shared at least some of what he’d gleaned through Kronos’ Quickening with his Watcher, but if Mac had told Joe, Dawson would never have had to ask.

“I know what you want to hear, Joe, but I’m sorry. I didn’t wake up one day and realize that what we were doing was wrong. I just…got bored with it. It seemed there had to be more to life than torturing and killing mortals who were no more of a challenge to us than sheep. So I…left the Horsemen.”

“Just like that?” Joe questioned, heavy on the irony. Dawson might never have met Kronos, but he’d obviously heard enough about him to know that no one just walked away from the man.

“No, but you don’t need the gory details.” Methos held his breath, praying that MacLeod wouldn’t supply them. When there was no humiliating illumination, Methos glanced over at MacLeod. 

He was startled to see something like compassion flash in the Highlander’s dark eyes as MacLeod no doubt replayed some of those grisly recollections he’d picked up from Kronos. Methos had learned a great deal about pain firsthand in his attempts to free himself of his ‘brothers.’ If the softhearted Silas hadn’t secretly unchained him that last time, Methos knew he would never have retained his sanity.

But MacLeod didn’t speak of any of Kronos’ degradations during that mortifying period, instead, Mac just sat there watching him. There was a different quality to the dark gaze. MacLeod looked like he was trying to work out the pieces to some intricate puzzle rather than deciding whether it was worth taking his head.

“So what did change you?” Dawson asked.

“What makes you think I changed, Joe?” Methos challenged.

“Save the bullshit for MacLeod,” Joe irritably countered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” MacLeod demanded, almost on cue.

The Scot’s unconsciously petulant tone almost brought a smile to Methos’ face. Joe was already grinning.

“You bring out the worst in each other, that’s all. Look are you gonna answer my question or not?” Dawson asked, bending awkwardly over to stow his electric guitar in its case. Obviously, the music was over for the night.

“Like I said, I got bored. I grew up. I learned to read, learned to write and my world expanded. Education is a dangerous thing. You open the door to one thought and a dozen more rush in. It wasn’t until centuries later, after I’d studied with some of the great philosophers that…the scope of what I’d done hit me,” Methos answered.

“And then?” Joe quizzed, his blue eyes worried; but under it, he looked like he wanted his guess confirmed.

“What do you think? There was no way to make reparation. I couldn’t raise the dead or undo the wrongs I’d done. I spent a couple of decades trying to get my head lopped off, but…the coward in me always chickened out at the last minute, then Death would resurface and that would be all she wrote,” Methos supplied.

“What made you stop doing that?” Joe seemed really enthralled by even these vague details of his past. 

A peek at MacLeod revealed an equally absorbed expression.

He’d never talked about this, ever, with anyone. Even now, the need for discretion was overwhelming, but…the need for honesty with these men was greater. And this was something he could share with them without painting himself a complete moral degenerate. Even the prudish Scot would approve of this anecdote. Yet…the truth was dangerous in itself here. 

He debated the consequences of answering, then decided to take a chance. His friends might have lost faith in him, but they were still his friends. If he couldn’t trust Duncan MacLeod, who could he trust in this world?

Finding it easier to talk to the more sympathetic Dawson, he directed his gaze that way, keeping MacLeod in the periphery. “About two-thousand years ago, I challenged a young Immortal in one of the Roman Provinces, a hermit, living alone in the desert. He was young and tall, looked like he’d be good in a fight and I thought he could be the one to best me. But it didn’t work out that way. You would have liked him, MacLeod. He was even more of an idealist than you, if you’d believe it. He was a complete pacifist, absolutely refused to fight me, even when I put my sword to his throat with Death in my eyes and every intention of taking his damn fool head.” Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Mac’s muscular form bristle with incipient fury. “I tried to goad him into fighting – taunted him, cut him, but he wouldn’t take up the challenge. I’d never seen anything like it, before or since. He was utterly fearless. He just watched me out of those bottomless brown eyes, waiting. There was such a calm about him that I was tempted to kill him out of sheer envy, but….”

“But you didn’t.” Joe didn’t sound the least bit uncertain.

Absurdly moved by that small show of faith, Methos nodded his head and continued, “I couldn’t do it. He had such…presence. When I lowered my sword, I was the one who was shaking. He started talking to me, calming me, as though I’d nearly lost my head. He…he’d never had one of us for a teacher. He didn’t really know what he was, had it all jumbled up in some fanatical philosophy. I knew he was completely delusional, but I found myself listening to him and I told him…about the Horsemen, told him things that I’d revealed to no one, ever. All the horrible things I’d done with my brothers. He…he didn’t scorn me or judge me. He just…listened.”

“That was it? He just listened?” Joe appeared supremely disappointed.

“Not quite,” Methos shook his head, knowing he was a fool for even telling this part of the tale, but determined to give the truth, no matter what. “He’d had a reputation as a healer when he lived among man. When I was through with my tale, he offered to help me and I…I…mocked him when he told me that there was nothing that could be broken that couldn’t be fixed. As a joke, I challenged him to fix me, told him that there was no way to heal my mind of the horrors I’d done and he….”

“Yes?” Joe was wide-eyed as a child hearing a thrilling fireside tale. 

Even two-thousand years later, Methos couldn’t keep the marvel out of his voice as he answered, “He did it, Joe. He fixed me. He put his hands on the sides of my head. He told me there was no sin that couldn’t be forgiven if it were truly regretted and….”

“And?” Joe prompted.

“Something changed inside of me. I don’t know how he did it, but it was like he reached down into my heart and pulled out the horror and pain. I-I didn’t want to die anymore. The guilt was still there, but I knew I had to accept what I’d done and go on with life,” Methos hesitantly admitted. Joe didn’t worry him, but he was almost afraid to reveal these things to MacLeod. They were so personal, more personal in a way than what he and Byron had done together. Everybody had sex. His choice of another man as lover might offend MacLeod’s Catholic mores, but he’d understand it. This was…almost mystical. Two-thousand years later it was still raw where that Healer had touched him. If Mac scorned the very thing that had kept him sane, Methos wasn’t sure their friendship would ever recover.

But MacLeod surprised him once again by living up to his high flung morals and not kicking a man while he was down. Instead of making light of the event, Mac simply said in that wonderful, deep voice of his, “He sounds a lot like Jim Coltec.”

Methos nodded. “Yes, indeed.”

“So what happened then?” Joe asked.

Methos sighed. “I spent a couple of weeks in the desert with him, learning as much as I could. Most of what he talked about seemed impossible, absurd even. It went completely against human nature, but he believed it…and lived it. I couldn’t. If someone came for my head, I was going to defend myself. But…I tried to humor him for a while. I wanted that kind of…inner peace, I suppose you’d call it. He wanted me to join him and help others understand, but…I’d never been much for gurus. When I couldn’t convince him of what he was, I packed up my stuff and left him there.”

“You left an unschooled Immortal on his own?” MacLeod challenged what they both knew to be the most irresponsible act an Immortal could commit. Their largest danger wasn’t from each other, but from the mortals who far out-numbered them. When you encountered a newly made Immortal, you either helped him or killed him. To leave the ignorant new Immortal stumbling on his own was criminal, a threat to all Immortals. Duncan had taken the head of one or two that couldn’t be convinced of their true nature, the same as they all had. 

Methos calmly met MacLeod’s infuriated glare. “Yes, I left him alone in the desert with the scorpions and the snakes. I knew it was a danger to us all to just let him go on the way he was. He was mad, certifiable, but…if he was to die, it would not be by my hand.”

“What happened to him?” Dawson asked.

“What do you think happens to an Immortal who refuses to defend himself, Joe?” Methos all but snarled. “One of us eventually killed him.” 

To this day, Methos wondered how different his world would be had he stayed, if he’d been there to protect his benefactor. But he’d cut his losses and run like he always did, and the gentlest, most compassionate soul he’d ever met had died on some sociopath’s blade. 

The only consolation Methos had about the entire Bordeaux catastrophe was the fact that he had finally stopped running from his ghosts. He’d stood strong and made a stand for something he believed in. His efforts had been too little, too late for a hero like MacLeod, but for Methos himself, the choice had been transformative. 

Not that it mattered. He’d still lost a friend that night, maybe two. MacLeod was still an unknown, more foe than comrade these days.

“You said you met this healer two-thousand years ago?” Mac questioned, his face scrunched with thought.

“A few years short of two millennia, perhaps,” Methos said, watching MacLeod closely, wondering how much he’d guessed.

“What was his name?” MacLeod questioned.

Although he’d embraced a policy of honesty tonight, there were some things that he just couldn’t share. Perhaps if it were just MacLeod and himself here he might have risked it, but Dawson made a truthful answer to that question impossible. Methos glanced at Joe, who was deep in a yawn and appeared to be losing his battle with exhaustion. The mortal was happily oblivious to Methos’ moral conundrum at the moment; Methos intended to keep it that way. 

Methos shrugged. “Could it possibly mater after all this time? He was an Immortal, the same as you or I.”

“Who took him out?” MacLeod asked.

“A nobody. Just another desert rat trying to make a name for himself; though, it was said he never fought another battle after killing my benefactor.” Far more subdued, Methos continued, “Myrdidd took the head of that man, and Darius took Myrdidd.”

Methos saw MacLeod jerk. At first, he thought it was in response to his teacher Myrdidd’s legendary name, but the troubled look on MacLeod’s face told him that the Highlander had figured out the timeline, guessed the identity of the most famous Immortal to rise out of the Roman Provinces two-thousand years ago.

“You’re not suggesting that Darius was…”

Before MacLeod could say things that were best not spoken of before mortals, even one as trustworthy as Joe Dawson, Methos quickly interrupted, “There are still wonders in this world, MacLeod, mysteries that make life worth living even after five-thousand years. Byron forgot that fact.”

Methos added the last to change the topic, to bring them firmly back to the present and away from that dangerous side trip. The one absolute certainty five-thousand years of life had given him was that some of the legends couldn’t be debunked. Man needed his heroes and gods. Take those beliefs away and humanity descended to the level of the Horsemen again and, as much as Methos had enjoyed the indulgent savagery of that age, he had no desire to see it live again.

“If he ever knew it,” MacLeod grudgingly answered, his disapproval returning them to the here and now, breaking whatever spell Methos’ recollection had cast over them all.

“Oh, he knew it. If you could have met him two centuries ago….” Methos began.

“I don’t think so,” Mac denied with that priggish streak that made Methos want to batter his head with the nearest blunt object.

“We can’t all be perfect, Highlander,” Methos sneered.

Joe let out a loud sigh. “If you two are going to play that old record again, I’m history. Hell, I’m beat anyway. I better get home while I can. Lock up when you’re done, guys.”

“Okay,” MacLeod answered as their mortal companion struggled down the stage stairs. 

Joe stopped at the bottom to stare over at them. His face looked gray and haggard, the events of this day weighing as heavily upon him as they did Methos.

“There’s gonna be a memorial service for Mike at St. Jude’s tomorrow at eleven. You’ll be there?” Dawson checked.

“We’ll be there,” the Highlander promised. “Good night, Joe.”

“’night, Joe,” Methos echoed.

Dawson gave them both a hard look. “Keep the sparring to words, okay?” Joe requested, legitimate concern in his eyes as he looked from one of them to the other.

Concern for me, Methos realized.

To Methos’ shock, MacLeod quickly assured Joe, “Always,” in much the same tone he’d used when reassuring Ritchie that the fight Ryan had interrupted when Methos had come to settle the Kristin situation was mere practice sparring.

It was hard not to offer a helping hand as his inebriated mortal friend struggled to make his painfully slow way to the club door with his guitar case and walking stick.

When Joe flailed his way through the red curtains at the door, the silence suddenly seemed louder. 

Once Methos was certain they were alone, he turned to MacLeod and softly questioned, “Always?”

“What?”

“You told Joe that we’d always keep the sparring to words,” Methos stated.

Appearing self-conscious, MacLeod answered, “Yeah…isn’t that what you want?”

The already tension-strained air felt brittle enough to shatter, the atmosphere far too similar to that between two gunslingers about to go for their guns. 

That was simply not happening between them, Methos promised himself, answering the Highlander without further delay, “Of course, it’s what I want.”

“Then why’d you look so shocked?” MacLeod’s distrust was still there, just below the surface. Probably always would be.

“Frankly, I’ve had the feeling that you’d prefer to take my head to suffering my company lately,” Methos admitted.

MacLeod’s liquid brown gaze met his own, regret plain in their chocolaty depths. “I have never wanted your head.”

Duncan MacLeod was the first Immortal in five-thousand years from whom Methos actually believed that claim. Hell, MacLeod was the first of their kind Methos had ever fully trusted his secret to. Byron and his other friends knew he was old, just not how old. 

While it was reassuring to hear the words from his truth-loving companion, Methos felt obliged to point out, “But you haven’t wanted my company of late.”

MacLeod’s innate honesty wouldn’t allow him to refute the accusation. “It’s been…strained between us since….”

“Since Cassandra told you what I was. I can’t change my past, MacLeod,” he wondered if his voice or face revealed what it was like to be haunted by such a past for three-thousand years.

Something must have shown for MacLeod was almost gentle as he answered, “I know that. None of us can.”

“But you can’t accept what I was….”

“I’m trying,” MacLeod cut in.

“Are you?” Methos challenged, almost coldly. As far as he could see, the Highlander rarely passed up an opportunity to get a dig in.

“Yes, damn it, I am!”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Methos quietly countered. He knew nothing would be served if they both lost their tempers, but he couldn’t hold in his bitterness. Duncan MacLeod was perhaps the only friend he had actively worked to keep, the only person he’d risked his neck for in over five-thousand years. 

“Methos, it isn’t that simple. You….”

“I – what? I’ve lied to you only once, the day Cassandra surprised me in the dojo….”

“You lied to me with words only once, “ MacLeod corrected. “How often did you misrepresent yourself?”

“Never. I have been nothing but a friend to you since the day we met,” Methos hotly swore, certain of that, if nothing else in his checkered past. 

MacLeod had the grace to look guilty. They both knew that was the bottom line between Immortals. When you outlived nations, history had to be kept where it belonged – dead and buried. Between most of their kind, it didn’t matter who or what each other had been in the past, so long as their swords stayed sheathed and they could turn their backs on each other in the present and keep their heads. 

Appearing painfully uncertain, MacLeod attempted to explain himself, “Methos, when we first met, you came across as a meek academic….”

“And so I’ve been for the past five or six hundred years. You are judging me on events that happened more than three-thousand years ago. Are you the same man you were at your true death in Scotland? The same man you were after Culloden or before you met Darius? Everybody changes, MacLeod.”

“Some more than others,” Mac still couldn’t seem to pass up the opportunity to get a jibe in.

Methos took the words at face value, storing their hurt away where he stored all the rest of his pain. “You’re right. Some men don’t change. I could still be Death. I could have spent the last three millennia marauding with Kronos and his like, but I didn’t. I stopped--”

“You got bored,” MacLeod pointed out.

“Yes, I got bored with it. I’m sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but that is the truth you so wanted to hear. I made a conscious choice to walk away from the only life I’d ever known and I paid for that choice, MacLeod. Kronos’ Quickening probably gave you some idea of the immediate consequences of that decision. If it makes you feel any better, his torments were the easiest part of the whole thing. I’ve paid for my sins, MacLeod. Believe me, I’ve paid.”

Methos was surprised to see his companion pale. Obviously, Mac had gotten quite a bit of his past from Kronos. 

It was hard knowing that MacLeod was privy to those humiliating tortures, but Mac’s unexpected support and compassion almost made up for Methos’ dented pride.

A nauseous expression darkening his features, MacLeod asked, “What do you mean – that was the easy part? I thought I’d seen everything, but what he did with that knife of his…” the brave warrior couldn’t continue. After a moment, MacLeod offered in a thickly accented voice, “I’d’ve killed him just for what he did to you.”

“I know,” Methos nodded, appreciating all that MacLeod conveyed with that.

“What could be harder than that?” MacLeod asked after a short silence, sounding as though he weren’t really certain he wanted the answer.

“Comprehension?” Methos suggested.

“What?”

“MacLeod, I know you’re not going to understand this, but the world was a very different place five-thousand years ago. I didn’t grow up a chieftain’s son in a Christian kingdom. Truth be told, I didn’t grow up anyone’s son.”

“I thought you’d forgotten your first life,” MacLeod said.

“Could you ever forget the experiences and the people who made you Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod? Your mortal kin have been dust for almost four centuries and you still identify yourself to our kind by your connection to them,” Methos pointed out. “We don’t forget what made us.”

“So that was a lie too?” Mac looked more puzzled than offended.

“Not a lie, MacLeod. There are things all of us work very hard to forget.”

“That’s true.” Once again this honorable man refrained from asking awkward details. MacLeod didn’t put him on the spot interrogating him about the painful experiences that had formed him; although Methos could see the curiosity blazing through him. 

There was a part of Methos that was tempted to give MacLeod the truth, to share the kind of upbringing that molded a normal child into the kind of compassionless monster that could ride with the Horsemen, but such enlightenment would only hurt Mac. Even the Horsemen were innocent once. MacLeod couldn’t redress the wrongs that had been done to the child Methos had been, anymore than Methos could undo his past. No matter what, he was determined to never become an object of pity in MacLeod’s eyes. Monsters, though hated, were worthy of respect. The only way Mac was ever going to get those particular reminiscences was through his Quickening.

When Methos was sure MacLeod was once again listening to him, he went on with a lesser, more impersonal truth, “Right and wrong were only vague notions then. The simple truth is that I hardly thought about the reality of what I was doing. Beyond planning the best attack strategy, I barely thought at all back then. It was all…living in the moment. I won’t debate the morality of it, but the fact of the matter is that the strong ruled and the weak served. The stronger you were, the more inclined you were to bask in it. I did what I did, and enjoyed it, and not a single day goes by that I don’t wish that I could step back into the past and take a different course than the one I chose. I know the abomination that I was, MacLeod, far better than you ever will.”

MacLeod lowered his eyes almost guiltily. “Then why….”

“Why what?” he softly encouraged, wanting to get past this whole issue, even if it meant they wouldn’t be friends anymore.

“When you told me of your past…why did you brag so? Why did you sound so…goddamn gleeful?”

He’d known it was the wrong course to take, but hadn’t been able to resist the opportunity to hurt back when everything that mattered seemed to be slipping through his fingers through no fault of his own. “I needed to alienate you. I needed to cut ties and run before Kronos got his hooks in me again. I thought….”

“Yes?”

“You’re not going to like it,” Methos warned.

The humor that had carried MacLeod through four-hundred years of loss surfaced. With a wry chuckle, Mac asked, “So, what else is new?”

“I didn’t want you anywhere near Kronos, so…I tried to cut our ties the fastest way I knew how. I knew that once you discovered my past, you’d want nothing more to do with me.” Yet, here they were talking, trying to hash this out instead of putting a couple of continents between them like any intelligent Immortals would do.

“If that’s true, then why did you leave that matchbook in the Romanian asylum that Kronos sprang Kaspian from?” MacLeod questioned, sounding like he was looking for a lie -- not that Methos could blame him.

“I didn’t expect to be captured. Kronos showed up as soon as you left. When you said we were through, I thought that would be the last of it. That I’d disappear into the sunset, never to be seen again and spend the rest of my life hiding from Kronos, but once he found me….”

“Yes?” MacLeod asked.

“Have you ever been the prisoner of a man like that, Highlander? If I was not with him, I was dead.” Reading the disapproval that Mac couldn’t quite hide, Methos’ irritation flared. “I’m not you, MacLeod. It’s not in me to throw my life away on a moral dilemma.”

“No, we all know morals aren’t your strong suite.”

The dig was too much. “You….”

“What?” MacLeod demanded, in a tone so contentious that it made Methos long for the days when he’d had the skill to teach smart mouths the errors of their ways. 

MacLeod’s brows were raised, waiting, his whole body a dare.

More than anything, this man needed to be taught a lesson, and Methos was more than eager to do it, only…the days of surprising Mac with his own katana were long past. That kind of trust would probably never exist between them again. If either of them lifted a blade to the other now, it would be in earnest. Yet, the desire to just give in to that imperative and have at it was almost irresistible. There was almost a palpable energy playing along their skins, irritating and building in power. The call to battle felt chemical.

As he thought the word ‘chemical,’ Methos stamped down hard on his own aggression. Of course, it was chemical. Mac had taken a Quickening less than two hours ago. He was spoiling for a fight…or any action that would take the unbearable edge off.

Recognizing what was going on, Methos froze and kept his inflammatory comment to himself. You didn’t live five-thousand years without learning a thing or two about human nature. 

Consciously defusing, Methos put on his best Adam Pierson facade. Widening his eyes, slumping his shoulders, making himself as diminutive as possible, he softly offered, “I wasn’t strong enough to stand against him. I don’t know that I ever was, but I knew…”

His ploy worked. Mac was so gloriously predictable, too chivalrous by half to bully someone he perceived as weaker than himself. It was a wonder the man had survived this long. Though the serious cast never left MacLeod’s features, the predatory gleam did.

“Yes?” MacLeod encouraged, his patient self again.

“You had the strength to deal with him. You just needed the fire. I provided that the night you killed Kaspian. ‘I go with the winner,’ remember? I knew getting you mad at me was the surest method to--”

Stiff with rage, MacLeod cut in with, “You mean you intentionally….”

“Yes. I intentionally destroyed the finest friendship I’d ever had to save my scrawny neck. You want to know the really ironic part about it all, Mac?”

The betrayed expression on MacLeod’s guarded face told him that it was quite possible Mac didn’t want to hear another word from him for the rest of his life, but the Highlander had more moral courage than Methos could ever hope to entertain and boldly asked, “What?”

He caught that suspicious dark gaze and held it. “It wasn’t worth it and there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do to make that any better, either.” Methos downed the last of his drink and quickly stood up, wobbling a little from all the alcohol he’d consumed. “I’ll see you around, MacLeod.”

He didn’t make it two feet towards the coat rack before an iron hard grip on his right bicep stopped him. “Wait!”

He looked up into the chiseled perfection of MacLeod’s face. The Scot’s forehead was creased in a frown again, his thick eyebrows almost a straight line across the ridge of his brow. Mac’s features couldn’t be called stony at the moment, not with that much anger and irritation in them, but his face was certainly hard, harder than a friend’s should be, harder than some enemies’ even. For all the tortures Kronos had inflicted upon him, the ancient Immortal had never looked upon Methos with such….

Methos couldn’t even categorize the emotions flashing through MacLeod’s face: anger, for sure, with a good deal of hurt thrown in, and something that was uncomfortably close to disappointment.

“What do you mean it wasn’t worth it?” MacLeod demanded.

“It means I should have let Cassandra take my head. That guy in the desert had it all wrong, Mac. Some things can’t be forgiven.”

“I’m supposed to feel sorry for you now, right?” MacLeod questioned, understandably skeptical. 

“Feel whatever the hell you want, just let go of me,” he sneered back, trying to pull free.

“You started this. We’re gonna finish it,” MacLeod denied, grabbing Methos’ other arm in an equally unbreakable grip, holding the older Immortal firm with his greater bulk. 

Unless Methos used his knee, he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Death would have done it without a second’s pause, but Methos couldn’t. He’d already hurt his friend more than he could ever make up for. He wasn’t about to add physical assault to his lengthy list of transgressions. 

Besides, Methos wryly recognized, if he did do something that stupid, there was every chance MacLeod would snap him in half.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” MacLeod echoed, not mocking, simply not understanding.

“There’s nothing left here to salvage. You don’t have any respect left for me at all and I….”

“And you?” Mac didn’t sound angry anymore. He was just watching him with those bottomless eyes that seemed to see everything, no matter how hard Methos struggled to hide it.

Methos scrunched his eyes shut to block out the sight. He stopped resisting and stood stone still. All he could feel was the Highlander’s body heat pouring down his left side like warmth off a hearth. Methos’ breath caught as he recognized how physically aware he was of MacLeod. Their bodies were locked so close together that he could have picked Mac out by scent alone in a dark room. Faded soap and shampoo, traces of a piney aftershave, sweat from the fight with Byron, musk, body heat…so much body heat….

“Methos?” MacLeod questioned in a tone so close to concern that it made Methos’ eyes sting.

It was too much. Mac’s heat, the scent of him, the power of the near-painful grip pinning him…his emotions were too raw tonight and everything was just too physical right now. Mortified, Methos felt himself go hard as his bones simultaneously liquefied. 

Mac felt it about a heartbeat later. The powerful body restraining Methos froze, then stepped back.

Deprived of support, Methos sank to his knees, gasping for air. He didn’t look up. He couldn’t. 

In four-hundred years of Watchers’ reports on this man, not a one of them involved a male sexual partner. A guy didn’t get much straighter than that. Almost hearing the fragile remains of their friendship shattering around him like glass, Methos knelt there on the black and white checkered linoleum, unable to think, let alone breathe. 

It was with no great surprise that he heard the click of MacLeod’s heavy leather boots on the floorboards as he withdrew.

Frozen beyond humiliation, Methos waited until the raging surf with its recently absorbed hornets’ nest of an Immortal signature receded from the club. Only when it was gone entirely and all there was left was the endless silence of the empty centuries stretching out ahead of him did Methos allow his tears to finally fall. Unable to stop them this time, he crumbled under the weight. He’d lost Byron and the Highlander in a single night. That had to be some kind of record, even for him. Drawing his knees tight to his chest, he let the grief have its way with him.

He’d been holding his pain back for so long that when the grief overtook him, there was no fighting it. He wasn’t like the men of this age. He didn’t know how to not feel. For the past six months he’d fought a losing battle with despair. Mac’s walking out on him was the final blow. 

He tried to control his reaction, but there was no holding the pain of desertion back. It overwhelmed him, as Silas’ death had in Bordeaux. Methos didn’t know how long he knelt there weeping on that freezing floor before exhaustion finally overtook him. It just seemed that mid-sob he found himself in a different place. He was out in the desert where he’d met that healer two-thousand years ago, only instead of that rangy hermit, it was MacLeod who sat with him at the campfire, a happy MacLeod who joked, told tales and looked at him out of smiling eyes instead of with suspicion. 

Even while unconscious, the symbolism of the substitution did not escape Methos. He couldn’t help but wonder if he really saw Duncan MacLeod as the means of his salvation. The fact that Mac was there, taking that ancient holy man’s place, seemed to state incontestably that he did. And he accused Mac of putting people on pedestals!

In the dream, the night was cold, as deserts were wont to be and Methos shivered. MacLeod reached down beside him and drew up a folded blanket. The Highlander shook it out and carefully laid it across Methos’ shoulders. Mac’s arm stayed across it for extra warmth. Appreciating the small kindness, Methos turned to smile up at the laughing Scot, only to feel the rough wool of the blanket rub against his cheek. 

Irritated by the verisimilitude of the dream, Methos scratched at his cheek…and encountered rough wool. 

Abruptly aware of the very real Immortal signature singing around him, Methos shot up from his sleep, reaching for his sword. But he wasn’t in his bed and his weapon was nowhere at hand. What was beside him was Duncan MacLeod, staring down at him out of troubled eyes.

“It’s all right,” MacLeod assured. “It’s only me.”

Like that was supposed to calm him. 

Confused, Methos stared down at the blanket draping him, belatedly recognizing it as the one that usually resided in MacLeod’s trunk. 

“What are you doing here?” Methos asked, hating the cried out sound of his voice. He wondered how much dirt he’d picked up off the floor and whether his cheeks were stained with tear streaks now. Was his humiliation never to end?

“Running never solves anything,” MacLeod uncomfortably stated. He looked absurd sitting there Indian fashion in the middle of the empty club floor. The knees of his dark pants were stained with gray dust and his big body appeared strained, like maybe he’d been waiting a while. 

The blanket’s presence made it plain that MacLeod had entered the club, then gone back out again for the blanket upon finding Methos asleep on the chilly floor. Why Mac had bothered covering him at all was beyond him. With the way they’d parted, Methos would have expected a kick.

Abruptly wondering how long the younger Immortal had been sitting there, Methos played for time.

“Oh, I don’t know. Running has always worked for me,” he replied, trying to gather his wits about him. He never woke up fast. He didn’t know if he was up to Round Two right now. He couldn’t figure what the hell had brought MacLeod back.

“It didn’t this last time,” MacLeod said.

Still not with it, Methos asked, “What?”

“After Bordeaux.”

“No, MacLeod, running worked just fine. It was coming back that was the mistake,” even Methos could hear the weariness in his voice. He felt every one of his five-thousand years at the moment.

“Why did you?”

“Why did I what – run or come back?” Methos asked for clarification, just to be snarky. He was fully aware of what MacLeod was questioning.

“You must have pulled up stakes a thousand times in your life….” MacLeod began. 

“Try millions,” Methos corrected for the sake of accuracy.

“So why’d you come back this time?”

“Obviously, I’m a glutton for punishment,” he quipped, hoping to change the topic.

“No jokes, Methos.”

“What do you want from me, MacLeod?”

“I want you to answer one question.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“Quit it, now,” Mac looked like he was trying very hard to maintain his temper.

Wondering what could possibly be that important to the Highlander in the shattered remains of their friendship, Methos reluctantly asked, “What’s your question?”

“Before…what was that about? I thought I was the one who’d taken the Quickening….”

Some things were beyond explanation, even for an Immortal who’d seen five-thousand winters. It was a testament to Duncan MacLeod’s true courage that he’d even ask such a question. That type of emotional fortitude was what separated the true heroes from the wanna-bes, Methos supposed. There was so much more to bravery than running around swinging a sword, just as there was so much more to desire than mere physical attraction and animal lust. 

MacLeod was waiting, his features troubled, but his willingness to listen apparent. 

And, once again, Methos had no words for it. He could no more explain this pointless longing than he could convey what it was like to carry Death’s sins on his conscience for three-thousand some odd years.

So, he tried to hide. Pulling his knees defensively up to his chest, he stared down at the blue blanket covering his lower body, the physical proof of the Highlander’s continued caring. When he called MacLeod perfect, it was no joke, though the words were often said in anger. The Scot was that and so much more, so much more that would never be his. He had Mac’s friendship, if he answered that particular question honestly, that might no longer be the case. 

Tired beyond bearing, he softly instructed, “Go home, MacLeod.”

“Was it…the Quickening?” MacLeod tentatively suggested. “I know we put out a lot of pheromones right afterward….”

“That’s as good an explanation as any,” Methos allowed, relieved that he hadn’t had to voice the lie himself.

“That’s not an answer, Methos,” MacLeod pointed out, seeing through him with frightening ease. “Come on, let’s get up from this freezing floor and….”

The gentleness, he’d almost come to expect. What the oldest Immortal hadn’t anticipated was the hand that reached out to touch his shoulder. There was nothing sexual about the gesture. It was the same kind of innocent contact MacLeod had used with him a thousand times before. But tonight it hurt Methos, seeming to highlight as it did all the things that could never be between them.

“Don’t!” he hissed, sliding clear.

For a long moment, Duncan sat there staring at his hand, as if trying to figure out the nature of his offence.

Methos’ stomach clenched into a tight ball when MacLeod’s confusion seemed to give way to understanding.

“It’s as bad as that, is it?” MacLeod softly questioned, his brogue thick and gruff.

When doing nothing failed, Methos’ faithful fallback was bluff. Putting as much disdain as he could muster into his attitude, Methos demanded, “What are you talking about, MacLeod?”

For the longest time Mac didn’t reply. At first Methos thought MacLeod was using his own tactics against him, but then he realized that the other man was simply sitting there, for all intents and purposes, studying him.

It was unnerving having those dark eyes focused so intently upon him in the dim light, but Methos forced himself to sit still and withstand it. He’d survived Kronos. He could deal with being watched, but somehow this was harder. He felt far more vulnerable here with MacLeod, which made no sense. Of all the Immortals he’d ever encountered, Duncan MacLeod was the least likely to hurt him. Yet, Methos had rarely felt so open to attack.

“You were wrong before, you know,” MacLeod remarked.

“About what specifically or is that just a sweeping judgment?” Methos asked in a hollow imitation of his usual sarcasm. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to stop shaking inside.

“I haven’t lost respect for you.”

Mac couldn’t have startled him more if the Highlander had pulled out his katana and taken his head. He’d expected some further comment on his earlier loss of physical control, some form of …judgment on his inappropriate sexual response. The shock of the statement hit worse than a physical blow. To his knowledge, this was the first time Mac had ever lied to him.

“Right.” Methos didn’t have to fake his cynicism this time. All his bottled-up hurt took care of it for him. 

“It’s my trust that was shaken,” MacLeod admitted, his determined expression making Methos suspect that Mac was forcing himself to get through this. “And I’ve been…blaming you for it ever since.”

That had the ring of truth to it. 

Methos lowered his gaze, watching as he bunched the blue wool blanket covering his knees between his fists. “I can’t undo my past, MacLeod.”

“I know,” MacLeod’s voice was gruff with emotion. “In my head I know it, but I still find myself blaming you. I…I want to understand why I’m so angry with you all of the time,” MacLeod’s reluctance as he voiced those words was almost palpable. 

“I disappointed you and betrayed your trust,” Methos somberly reminded, as though that hadn’t been the on-going topic of debate for the past six months.

“I’ve been betrayed before….”

“And they all usually lost their heads. This was different,” Methos argued, unable to resist playing Devil’s Advocate, even when it was himself he buried with his sharp wits.

“It’s _always_ been different with you,” MacLeod declared in the tone of someone making a major discovery.

“How so?” Methos questioned, intrigued. Mac looked so pensive. This quiet thoughtfulness was so different from the outraged machismo that Methos had envisioned after his body’s earlier betrayal that Methos couldn’t help but poke at it.

Mac seemed extremely self-conscious as he said, “We…it’s not the same between us as it is between other Immortals. It never has been.”

“What do you mean?” Methos didn’t debate the legitimacy of the claim. He’d never viewed MacLeod the same way he did the rest of their kind; although he’d known from day one that the Highlander could have slain him any time he wanted. But then, again, he was a cautious man. He’d waited until he’d seen how MacLeod dealt with Kage before risking contact with the young Immortal he’d watched from afar for these past three centuries or so. 

“The…suspicion, I guess you’d call it, was never there with you, even in the beginning, after we crossed swords in the water tunnel,” MacLeod said. “I never once felt like you were going to go for my head when my back was turned.”

“I offered you mine on our first day together, MacLeod. There isn’t a more effective tactic than that for disarming mistrust.”

“That wasn’t a tactic,” Mac reprimanded. “Don’t even pretend to go there.”

Chastened, Methos looked away. “No, you’re right; it wasn’t. I was desperate that day.” The last time he’d been driven to a state like that was when his relationship with Byron was disintegrating around him. Then, as with MacLeod, his fear had driven him to foolish straits. “I…didn’t expect you to….”

“To what?” MacLeod prodded.

“To have enough…faith in me not to see our entire past as a complete…lie, I suppose. These past few months, there’s been so much suspicion. I thought it would color your entire view of me.”

“It did for a long time,” Mac admitted. 

“And now?”

“I don’t know, Methos. You’re not the man I thought you were, but you are what you are.”

“Only slightly below the Untouchable Caste,” Methos couldn’t keep the bitterness out of the smart-ass comment. He stared off at the upended stools on the bar, wishing he could put himself on hold like that indefinitely.

“No!”

The heat of the instant protest brought his wary gaze back to those upset features. “No? Then I think you need to tell me what I am, MacLeod, because I don’t know anymore. Friend, foe…I’ve no clue where I stand with you…if anywhere at all,” he was making no assumptions here. Nowhere at all was a hell of a lot safer with their kind most times.

“You’re my friend, Methos. You know that.”

“Do I?”

After all the pain MacLeod had put him through these past six months, the hurt in those handsome features should have been meaningless, but somehow it only made him feel even more guilty.

“I guess maybe I had that coming.” Mac said at last, adding a serious, “It must look bad from the outside. Joe was really worried it would come to swords between us when he left tonight.” 

MacLeod said that last sentence as though the idea were unthinkable. 

“It wasn’t really an unrealistic concern on his part,” Methos pointed out. 

“What are you saying?”

On some level, it was eminently reassuring that Mac didn’t think about beheading as a viable answer to their personal problems. On the other hand, the realist in Methos couldn’t understand. Mac had dispatched other Immortals he’d known far longer than their three years for much smaller offences. 

“I guess I don’t understand why I still have my head. I was as bad as the others, perhaps worse in some ways.” At the Highlander’s pained expression, he explained, “I had imagination.”

“But you changed,” from the way MacLeod said the words, it sounded like a credo he’d repeated to himself over and over again.

This was the part of it that frustrated him the most. MacLeod truly believed that he wasn’t the same degenerate who’d committed those unforgivable acts, and yet the Highlander still blamed him for the crimes.

“Changed enough to be spared, but never forgiven, ey, Highlander? You’re a hard man, MacLeod.” 

“I….”

“I can’t take back the past. If you want to punish me, then take my head and get it over with,” Methos demanded, unable to bear another moment of this disapproving distance.

“More games, Methos?” the Highlander challenged, his annoyance plain.

Methos bit his lip, battered by the skepticism. What hurt so much about this whole thing was that for the first time in his life, such treatment was undeserved. He hadn’t failed MacLeod, ever. Where he would have run from a fight for his own head, he’d stood strong and fought challenges for this man’s sake, with opponents who by every right should have sent him to his maker. Methos didn’t know how he could have been a better friend to MacLeod. He’d never tried to change as hard as he had these last three years, all to be worthy of MacLeod’s respect. And he’d lost it all with Cassandra’s arrival. 

He just didn’t have the strength in him to live with this kind of failure. If he weren’t worthy of MacLeod’s friendship, then the three-thousand years he’d spent changing were nothing but wasted energy. “No games. Just truth.” 

“You really expect me to believe that? I may be younger than you, Methos, but I wasn’t born yesterday. You know I won’t do it.”

The disgust in MacLeod’s attitude bit into him like acid. 

“If you had half the honor you play at, you would,” Methos sneered, everything so raw inside that he no longer cared about consequences. 

He’d pushed the right button. Mac’s face darkened like a thundercloud at the aspersion to his honor. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The quality of mercy, Highlander. Practice what you preach. Either forgive me or take my head. This…cruelty ill becomes you.”

“Cruelty?” Mac echoed, as though he’d never heard the word before.

“What do you call it? I’ve never been anything but friend to you, yet you treat me like…like Judas Iscariot because of events that happened a thousand years before your Christ even lived.” 

“Maybe I’m just trying to figure out what else you’re capable of, what other secrets you’re hiding,” MacLeod said. 

The really ironic part was that Methos could see Mac didn’t intend those words as a weapon, yet they ripped his heart right in half. 

Methos opened his mouth to respond, closed it when he couldn’t find an argument and looked away. 

“Methos.”

He didn’t want to, but he found himself meeting that dark gaze. 

MacLeod attempted to explain, “I trusted you as I’ve trusted no other Immortal – including Fitz. It’s going to take a while for….”

“It’s been six months, MacLeod.”

“It’s not easy. You….”

He couldn’t bear to hear one more time how completely he’d let MacLeod down.

“Yes, I disappointed you. Yes, I lied to you. Yes, I manipulated you. Yes, you have every right to be angry. But I had no choice, MacLeod. I’m not you. I’m no hero. You want to punish me for that, then do it, take my head and get it over with, only…” he ran out of steam under that steady gaze. Methos hadn’t meant to say half of that. He could see the words hit Mac hard. 

“Only?” the guarded word was hardly encouraging. MacLeod was watching him as though seeing him for the first time – which was not necessarily a good thing, survival-wise. 

“Put an end to this.”

“This?” Mac appeared legitimately confused.

Methos had never wanted to thrash him more. “This…distance.”

MacLeod’s incredibly long and thick lashes swept down to veil his eyes. “It’s not that easy, Methos.”

“Fine,” Methos snapped. “Then at least tell me what it’s going to take to make this right again. How much do I have to suffer before I regain your trust? Do I have to rescue a few kittens from trees, save some orphans from a burning building – what’s it going to take? Just tell me what I have to do to get back in your good graces, MacLeod, and it’s a done deal.”

The silence that followed was deafening. 

In its painful emptiness, Methos at last found his answer. Comprehension was no easier now than on that horrible day that he finally developed a conscience. 

“I…see.” The cold formality that had saved him in many an incipient challenge spilled over Methos, sarcasm and disdain entering his attitude. They were the only form of self-defense he had left here. His pride was history. “My apologies, I’m not usually this dense. Forgiveness isn’t an option here; is it?”

“Methos….” Mac was almost pleading.

“No, don’t trouble yourself, MacLeod. I get the picture. Two-thousand years of hard work and changing mean nothing. Once a Horseman, always a Horseman, right?” He pulled the blanket from his knees and tossed it at MacLeod. “Save your pity for those worthy of it, Highlander.”

“Methos!”

He was up on his feet and at the coat rack before the bulkier MacLeod struggled up to the vertical. He mightn’t be a perfect hero like MacLeod, but the one thing he had perfected over the years was fast exits. He was out of the club and racing down the garbage strewn, foggy alley behind Maurice’s before MacLeod even reached the street. 

Mac was sensitive for such a young Immortal, but by the time MacLeod had chosen a direction, Methos was already out of detection range.

There was nothing like pre-dawn Paris in the winter to define misery. The fog wreathed around him in the dark back streets, reddening his exposed skin, soaking his cheeks and hair. He huddled into his long black coat as he walked, but it did nothing to shield him. The cold was coming as much from inside him as out. He’d walked these same streets for centuries, but rarely with the kind of pain that was eating at his heart now. He’d been made a fool again, a total, complete fool. Every time he allowed someone into his heart, he ended up bleeding inside like this. If his lovers were mortal like Alexa, they died way too soon and if they were Immortal like Byron or MacLeod, they grew bored with him and discarded him.

With every step, Duncan MacLeod’s voice from six months ago kept echoing through his mind. _We’re through_.

Why hadn’t he believed those words? Why had he deluded himself that there was something worth saving here?

As Methos made his solitary way home, he racked his mind trying to understand whatever had possessed him to inflict this kind of humiliation upon himself. He’d known what the Highlander was; he’d seen how unforgiving MacLeod could be. He had to have been insane to even dream they could ever be friends, that a man like MacLeod would want him around once his past was known. 

There was a reason he’d never told anyone about the Horsemen in two-thousand years. Had a set of broad, strong shoulders and a sparkling pair of dark, sensual eyes made him forget his survival instincts?

But it wasn’t anything so simple as visceral longings that made him ache for MacLeod that way, Methos acknowledged as he turned down his block of eighteenth century buildings. In five-thousand years, Methos had seen, and had, more than his fair share of exquisitely good-looking lovers. It was more than mere physical chemistry that pulled him to Mac. No, nothing so easy as old-fashioned lust, though, gods knew, he did long for MacLeod. Strange as it may seem, it was the very honor he mocked that made him want Mac so. When he tracked back to its source, it was a single moment in time that had started this lunacy, one of those instances that forever defined a person’s character. 

Even now, that memory sent a chill through him. His death had been upon him as it rarely had in five millennia. Methos had been soaked to the skin with river water, shuddering with the cold as he stooped beaten before a man he’d unfairly attacked, a man who’d only offered him friendship, the man whose weapon blade lay cold as an icicle against his exposed throat. MacLeod should have taken his head that night. Any other Immortal would have done so without hesitation. But instead of taking a Quickening that would have made the Scot invincible, MacLeod had raised him to his feet, brought him into his home, talked him through the shakes, given him hot food, dry clothing…and a friendship the likes he’d never seen in five-thousand years.

He got hard every time he thought about hunching there in that freezing shortcut to the barge with Mac’s icy katana blade at his throat, crouching down to keep the razor sharp edge from slicing into his skin. It had been millennia since living that close to the edge had excited him. And even in his distant past, he’d been in that situation only twice before. Once when he was a mere hundred-years old, then again when he first met Kronos. Both times he’d traded his ass for another day of life. But MacLeod hadn’t asked that of him. All Mac had asked was that Methos allow the Highlander to help him defeat the psychopath that was hunting his head. And somehow, Mac’s not demanding that kind of payment had made Methos want to give it to the Highlander. 

He might as well have wanted to give it to the Pope, he bitterly reflected as his cold-numbed fingers fumbled the lock open. At least the Pope would have forgiven him his sins.

He was weary to the bone when he entered his apartment, but experience had taught him there’d be no rest while he was in this state. His mind was racing, his stomach churning at the magnitude of what he’d lost today. Byron alone would have been enough to depress him, but Mac….

Still too upset to think, he steered his mind away from that painful scene. He’d done everything but beg on bended knee for forgiveness…and it wasn’t enough. 

The streetlights filtering through the half-closed blinds lent an eerie silver-blue light to the apartment. His mobile, metal sculptures cast twisted, moving shadows through the living room. Normally, the blend of ancient artifacts and cutting edge modern art put him at ease, seeming to define his life as it did. But tonight, the ceaseless swaying of the sculptures only made him nervous, the way a cat’s twitching tail might, and there were far too many tragic memories associated with the artifacts. In its own way, his flat was almost like a museum, with each piece commemorating a happier time that he would never see again.

After securing the door, he removed his sword from its hidden sheath in his overcoat, shouldered out of the coat and hung it on one of the pegs directly to the right of the intercom. Sword in hand, he stepped into the living room proper.

The building’s cranky furnace had apparently given up the ghost again. His flat was barely warmer than the streets had been. 

Carefully not looking at the poetry collection on the nearest bookcase, Methos passed the wooden Welsh throne against the wall that divided the living area from his sleeping alcove and headed for the kitchen. Though tea would probably have been the best thing for him, there was a bottle of scotch in the cupboard out there that was calling his name. Maybe if he stayed drunk a couple of years it would take the bite out of this pain.

As if, he bitterly acknowledged. A man like Duncan MacLeod came along once in a lifetime, if you were lucky. You didn’t get over losing a friend of that caliber with a few years of boozing. And when it came to that man deeming you unworthy of his regard…Methos didn’t know if a person got over a blow like that at all.

He’d barely gotten the bottle out when the buzz of another Immortal hit him. The submerged hornets nest had almost been totally absorbed now. All Methos could feel were Duncan’s usual crashing waves.

“Damn,” he cursed, tensing all over as an angry pounding rattled the door. There was a perfectly operational buzzer right there, but neither MacLeod nor Amanda seemed to care for the modern technology. Mac’s pounding made Amanda’s loud night arrivals seem tame.

“Open the damn door, Adam,” MacLeod shouted.

Adam, not Methos. Even in his anger, MacLeod protected him. It was moments like this that made Methos know that he could never truly hate MacLeod. He might be mad as hell at the implacable prig, like now, but Mac’s underlying goodness precluded true hatred.

Purposefully leaving his sword behind, Methos regretfully placed the unopened bottle on the table. He would have liked a little fortification before facing Round Three. 

Furious that he wasn’t even allowed the sanctity of his home as a retreat from the self-righteous avenger, Methos stalked to the door and swung it open. “What?”

MacLeod actually looked startled by the reception he received. His handsome features hardening with a challenging, almost predatory antagonism, the Highlander brushed past him without waiting for an invitation. 

“Come in, why don’t you?” Methos sarcastically sneered. He’d had enough of MacLeod and his small-minded morality for one night, possibly for an Immortal’s lifetime.

“We weren’t through,” MacLeod said, in a tone that seemed to be struggling for civility.

Wondering why Mac was even trying, Methos corrected, “Oh, yes, we’re through. You said so in Seacouver. I was just too dense to accept it.”

“Methos….” 

The reasonable voice irritated him to a near berserker frenzy. Carefully clamping down on his rage, Methos tiredly said, “Go home, MacLeod.”

“You once told me _su casa es mi casa_ ,” Duncan reminded.

Methos despised the man at that moment. “We’ve already established my probity or lack thereof.”

“We can’t go on like this, Methos,” MacLeod said in that irritatingly reasonable tone he had at times. It was only slightly less infuriating than the judgmental one he more often took.

“You’re right as usual, MacLeod. We can’t. We shouldn’t even try. It’s been fun knowing you….”

“Methos…” The warning was plain.

And it was too much. Bad enough he subjected himself to this unforgiving piety when he was ready for the exchanges. For MacLeod to follow him home and inflict it upon him when he was in retreat was unbearable.

“What? What do you want from me? You’ve made it plain that it’s not my friendship. I don’t measure up. I can’t. Let’s just count our losses and be grateful we both still have our heads….”

“We’re friends,” MacLeod protested with that stubborn persistence that made Methos want to shake him.

“We were friends. Before Cassandra showed up. Since then…” he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Whatever it was, it’s gone now.” _Like everything else that ever meant a damn to me_. Turning his back on his uninvited guest, Methos stalked back to the kitchen. 

The scotch bottle was still sitting on the table where he’d left it. Its clear top caught the dim light from the courtyard window, glinting like crystals in the dark, beckoning to him, promising him forgetfulness.

Like most promisers, the scotch was a liar. The forgetfulness wouldn’t last. Methos knew going in that it was only a temporary reprieve. He’d still wake up with Death upon his conscience, only he’d have a splitting headache to contend with as well in the morning, but…sometimes he needed the temporary solace, regardless of the consequences. 

That was, after all, why he’d befriended MacLeod. Temporary solace. A few days, months, decades in the company of a man like that went a long way towards easing the ache inside. It was just bad luck that Cassandra had made her appearance after three short years; instead of the three decades or centuries he’d hoped for.

Like the ghost in some bad Shakespearean play, the relentless Scot followed him into the kitchen.

“You measure up,” MacLeod said, shouldering out of his coat and laying it over the nearest hard backed chair. The sound of his katana knocking against the wood sounded strangely loud in the late-night/pre-dawn hush, its ring full of ominous possibilities.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” Methos sarcastically drawled, ignoring MacLeod’s statement. 

Mac moved past him and fetched two glasses from the draining board beside the sink. Reaching past where Methos was just standing there beside the table, defensively hugging his arms to his chest, MacLeod snagged the scotch bottle and poured them both a generous helping.

When Methos made no move to take the proffered drink, MacLeod put it on the table in front of him, pulled out the nearest chair and instructed, “Sit down.”

“I think I’ll stand if it’s all the same to you.” He was being difficult just for the sake of it, but he couldn’t help himself. This man had cut him to the quick tonight. He couldn’t take anything in stride with MacLeod right now.

“Methos, I think I know how you feel, I….”

That was too much. Unable to resist, he let his sarcasm loose. The jury was still out as to which part of him was the more ruthless killer – his tongue or Death. His tongue was arguing its case tonight. “You know how I feel -- do you? You know what it’s like to have your closest friend turn his back on you and treat you like a pariah because of something that happened three-thousand years ago?”

“Methos, it’s not that easy. It’s….”

“It’s who I used to be, Highlander. Emphasis on the _used to be_. Do you know what it’s like to carry something like that with you, every day for three-thousand years?”

Duncan opened his mouth as if to reply, then closed it and shook his head.

“I’ll tell you, shall I? When I was Death, I slept like a baby. Now…I need the beer just to get to sleep at all, and when I manage…I still see their faces at night, MacLeod. Every one of the countless thousands who fell under my blade, they’re all there, waiting for me when I close my eyes.”

He waited for this merciless avenger to tell him it was only his just desserts, but MacLeod surprised him by saying, “Sometimes I still see the Earl of Rosemont’s son’s face as he looked the day I killed his father after Culloden.”

“He was a lucky boy, MacLeod. Death spared neither the child nor his father. And what he did to the mother is unmentionable.” Moving from where he was leaning against the sink, Methos picked up the glass Mac had left on the table. He downed it in a single gulp, gasping as its fire burnt through him. “That’s what I am, MacLeod. That’s what I live with…what I’ve had to learn to accept.”

“Death’s been dead for three-thousand years,” MacLeod startled him by protesting.

“Has he?” Methos whispered.

“What do you mean?” 

“Who killed Silas? Do you think a bookworm who’s cowered from fights for six-hundred years could have bested a warrior of his caliber? Death’s still in me, Mac. I just don’t let him out to play very much anymore.”

“If that were true, you would have killed Kalas,” MacLeod argued, seeming totally without doubt.

“Would I? Maybe I feared Death more than Kalas.”

“And maybe you’re just running your mouth again to tick me off,” MacLeod countered. “Maybe I’m not the only one who has trouble accepting who you used to be.”

Methos flinched at the suggestion. Recovering, he shot back with, “You’re right. Acceptance doesn’t come easy. The guilt aside…I have lived every day of the past three-thousand years knowing that the men I’ve come to respect and admire would spit upon me and turn their backs on me forever if they knew even a tenth of what I’d done. I’ve hidden the truth from everyone for over two-thousand years. You’re the first to know it and, just as I knew you must, you turned away from me, too.”

“I haven’t turned away from you, Methos. We’re still friends….”

“We’re not. You tolerate me because you haven’t found it in your heart yet to take my head.”

“I don’t want your damn head!” MacLeod insisted. Visibly calming himself, the other man continued with, “Come on, Methos. Sit down, please?”

Feeling like a trapped animal, Methos cautiously eased into the chair Mac had pulled back earlier. It was no balm to his dented pride to know that even now, when they were through, when he’d at last stopped trying to gain MacLeod’s acceptance, that he’d still do anything Mac asked – simply because MacLeod asked it of him. 

Once Methos was seated, the Highlander took the chair beside him.

And, as so often happened, Methos’ eyes did a helpless reconnaissance of his companion. When he wore his hair tied back as tightly as it was bound now, Mac looked so severe. The Highlander’s black pants, tee shirt and burgundy outer shirt did nothing to lighten the somber impression his hair gave. MacLeod looked like judge and executioner rolled up in one. The fact that he so often played that role was in no way reassuring.

“I know how you must feel, Methos, but….”

Presented with the same idiocy he’d just spent the last ten minutes dispelling, Methos sneered, “You know what it feels like to have your friends despise you for mistakes you can’t fix? You know how it feels to have to hide all the time from the people you’ve come to love, because there isn’t a woman, or man, for that matter, on the planet that would come willingly to your bed if they knew what you’d been -- and you honestly can’t blame them because you wouldn’t sleep with you either if given half the chance -- are you telling me that you really _know_ how that feels, MacLeod?” he met his former friend’s eyes again, needing to be known, if only for this short time. 

“I’ve had a taste of it,” Mac replied, looking down.

It was the averted gaze that convinced Methos of his sincerity. But…who could turn away from this? There wasn’t a time ever that a man of MacLeod’s features and mettle wouldn’t be desired. Disbelieving that anyone could ever make Mac feel a pariah, Methos challenged the assertion with, “When?”

“I took Sean Byrnes’ head, Methos,” MacLeod spat out. “I know what it feels like to do something you can’t undo, something that makes you hate yourself more than anyone else ever could.”

There was no questioning the weight of that mistake. Mac had suffered the torments of the damned after the killers fighting for dominion of the Highlander’s soul had taken his old friend Sean’s head. 

Methos considered the argument for a moment, then decided, “It’s not the same. That was the result of a Dark Quickening. It wasn’t you….”

“It was as much me as that Horseman named Death was you,” MacLeod stunned him by arguing.

If only they could both believe that was true.

His eyes stinging, Methos gulped around a throat tight enough to strangle him. He was not going to start bawling again, shaking was bad enough. He was not going to fall apart in front of MacLeod. Taking in a deep, quivery breath, he shook his head and insisted, “It’s still different.”

“The only difference is the fact that my friends didn’t throw Sean Byrnes’ death in my face every time they saw me. They…accepted me, even after I did that terrible thing. _You_ accepted me.” None of this was coming easy to MacLeod. Every word looked like it was being ripped straight out of his heart.

Still unable to believe what he was hearing, Methos skeptically questioned, “Can I ask what brought about this change of attitude? You were singing an entirely different tune half an hour ago.” 

“I know.” The thick fan of MacLeod’s lashes lowered to veil his eyes. “I was…angry, but I started thinking about things…”

“And?” Methos prompted after the non-answer.

After a long silence, MacLeod offered, “I got past the anger enough to…remember what you are to me. There’s been so much strife between us lately that I couldn’t see you anymore; all I could see was how you’d….”

“Let you down?” Methos offered.

Mac nodded, then added, “But it’s not just me. I think that we’ve both been angry.”

Hearing the offer, seeing the other man’s willingness to listen in the open features, Methos hissed in a startled breath. Everything in him screamed that he’d already revealed too much here tonight. Maintaining his cover was the only thing that had kept him alive this long, only….

MacLeod already knew the worst about him and was still sitting here listening. What was a little more truth after the horrors of the Apocalypse?

Taking a deep breath, he nodded and admitted, “Yes, there’s been anger. I’ve never broken faith with you, MacLeod, not once, and yet….”

“Yes?”

The patient encouragement should have had a calming effect, but Methos’ heart was pounding in his chest like it had when Kronos had held that sword to his throat a few months ago. This was it, the chance he’d waited three-thousand years for – the opportunity to lay it on the line with someone he cared about and finally be seen for himself. For so long, he’d felt like that poor fool Diogenes, staggering along with his lantern in hand, searching the world for one honest man. He should have been happy that Mac was offering this opportunity, but all Methos could think about was what was at stake. Once he laid it out in the open, there would be no going back. 

Truth or consequences, he’d always hated these moments, the kind that made or broke relationships. Byron had always considered them to be the instances when he was most tinglingly alive, but they nauseated Methos. 

The knowledge that the peace between him and his closest friend could explode with a single wrong answer lay heavy upon him. It wasn’t as bad as with Kronos, where violence would be the result of a mistake. No matter what he said, he knew Mac would remain a rational human being. He just didn’t like going through this kind of painful postmortem when it seemed their relationship was already history. But if that were the case, why was Mac bothering with him at all? 

If there was any chance at reconciliation, he had to take it. MacLeod was offering him the opportunity to speak his mind. It was more than he’d expected, maybe more than Death deserved. 

Gathering his courage around him, Methos quietly offered, “You were so willing to believe the worst of me….”

“Only when I heard it from your own lips,” MacLeod cut in. “I came to you that night, hoping that it was all a mistake and…”

“And I gave you the truth.” Methos finished. “Would you have preferred a lie? I considered it, you know.”

“Why didn’t you?” Mac’s dark eyes rose from his contemplation of his drink. Mac might just as well have raised his sword to Methos’ throat; his body reacted that violently to the simple question. 

How was he supposed to answer that? How did he tell MacLeod that he’d waited three-thousand years to find someone stalwart enough to stand firm beside him even after knowing about the Horsemen, that he’d hoped MacLeod would be that person? How did he confess that he’d been as much of a sap as the rest of the world and bought into MacLeod’s heroic claptrap, that he’d been so credulous as to believe that redemption was actually possible for one such as him? 

Methos’ mouth went dry. His body didn’t want to answer that question anymore than his mind did, but he’d resolved to be honest with Mac and, as ever, honesty was a sharp blade. That was the problem with truth: Like any weapon, it was unforgiving and didn’t necessarily care who got in its way. He had no idea how he could tell MacLeod that this was one relationship he’d been determined not to screw up without revealing why the friendship was so important to him. And, even if he told the truth, he had no idea if he’d be believed. His credibility had been shot to hell ever since he’d lied to Mac about Cassandra.

Though the cynic in him was screaming that this was a useless ordeal to inflict upon himself when he already knew that they were through, there was a dreamer buried deep inside that wanted to risk it. After all, what had the cynic ever gotten him? That negativity had almost lost him Alexa the first time he’d gotten up the nerve to approach her. He’d be damned if it would cost him MacLeod as well when there was any chance of healing the breach between them. 

So, he took another deep breath and answered more harshly than intended, “Lying to you wasn’t a habit I wanted to get into.” 

His tone seemed to bounce right off the normally sensitive Scot. Instead of reacting, MacLeod asked in that same mild voice, “Why?”

“What do you mean why?” Methos sneered.

“You’ve hidden this for…what? Three-thousand years? Why tell me?”

“I told you why. To cut our ties and keep you clear of Kronos.”

“I don’t believe you,” MacLeod said.

As he often did when startled, Methos tilted his head to the left and blinked, staring at the Highlander out of narrowed eyes thereafter. “It’s the only truth I have, MacLeod.”

“Maybe it’s true, but it’s not the whole truth,” Mac countered.

About to further protest, Methos closed his mouth. He’d resolved to stop hiding from this man. Meeting those penetrating eyes, Methos suggested, “Maybe I was hoping for the impossible.”

“Which is?”

“Maybe I thought that my friend might be willing to accept me for the man I am and not hate me for the mistakes another me made three-thousand years ago. But perhaps that’s too much to ask of anyone, even the Perfect Immortal.”

Mac winced at the part about being accepted for the man he was. When Methos finished speaking, the Highlander quietly protested, without rancor for once, “I don’t hate you and I’m not perfect, Methos.”

Gods, even the way MacLeod said his name in that thick, upset brogue sent a shiver through him. There was so much he wanted from this man, so much that he would never have. Even when he was furious with MacLeod, he still longed for him, still ached to touch all that goodness and make it his own, if only for a short while. The temptation to do just that, to reach out and cover that powerful, blunt-fingered hand so near his own was so strong that he could barely hold back. His fingers balled into a fist on the table as he struggled to control his raging emotions.

“You’re wrong there, MacLeod, quite wrong. You’re the best of us. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

“How can you say that? You know better than anyone that’s not true,” MacLeod argued. 

“No, I don’t. I watched you for over 350 years before I dared make contact. I know you, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I know your goodness.”

MacLeod’s eyelashes swooped down to conceal his gaze as a faint flush touched his cheeks. “I remember when you told me something like that in Darius’ church after I killed Sean.”

Methos recalled that day as well, when he’d chased Duncan MacLeod all over France after the Dark Quickening. It was quite possibly the most terrifying twenty-four hours of his life, never knowing from one moment to the next when MacLeod’s control would snap and the killers inside him would strike out. He’d felt like he was juggling live nitroglycerine, just waiting for the situation to explode in his face. Now, he could look back at it from a distance and think of it as just another ordeal he’d gotten through, but at the time, being with Mac had been very much like dealing with Kronos at his worst. 

When Methos made no comment, MacLeod looked back up at him and continued, “I never understood why you kept coming after me that day.”

Methos shrugged. “It seemed the thing to do. It was no big deal.”

“It went against everything you ever tried to teach me about survival. Your motto has always been ‘Don’t get involved,’ but that day you risked everything for my sake again and again.” 

“What’s that got to do with anything, MacLeod? It’s all ancient history now.” Sadly enough, even the terrors of the Dark Quickening were seen as better days now, because even when he was being controlled by deranged killers, MacLeod was still his friend underneath it. Back then there had been none of the suspicion and distrust that defined their relationship these days.

“No, it’s not ancient history. Every time I think it’s about to come to swords between us, I remember that day and….”

“Refrain from taking my head out of gratitude?” Methos dispiritedly suggested.

“No! It just reminds me that that’s who you really are.”

Methos’ chin shot up, his body stilling. “You think that’s who I really am?”

“I **know** it is,” MacLeod corrected.

His stomach and throat clenching up as tight as his balled fist, Methos faltered, “But….”

“Since Bordeaux, you don’t let that Methos out much and I haven’t looked too hard to find him, but he’s still there. When Stephen Keane came for my head, it was that Methos who stepped forward and took him on.”

“After shooting you in the back,” Methos dutifully reminded. Even when he tried to do right, he did wrong. It was the story of his life, all five-thousand miserable years of it.

MacLeod blinked in obvious consternation, a series of fast-moving emotions fluttering through his expressive face, before he agreed with an ironic quirk of his full lips, “Aye, after shooting me in the back.”

“It’s all like that with me, Mac,” Methos confessed in a subdued tone. More than anything, he wished he could offer this man something to make MacLeod proud to be his friend, but all he had was his past. What wasn’t downright depraved or lurid was uninspiring at best…cowardly at worst. “Even when I try to do the right thing, it turns out wrong.”

“Not always,” MacLeod gently corrected.

“Name me one occasion where I didn’t…disappoint your expectations,” Methos challenged.

To his unending shock, MacLeod answered immediately, without any trace of doubt, “After the Dark Quickening. Everyone else, including Joe, stepped back and let me go, because they thought I was truly lost. You were the only one who believed in me. You risked everything to help me.”

Despite his longing to affirm Duncan’s delusions, Methos couldn’t allow his friend to operate under false premises. “Joe called me and told me what happened. He **asked** me to help.”

“Maybe so, but you still had the courage to do it.”

“Mac, it wasn’t….”

“You gave me back my life that day,” MacLeod cut into his protest, that deep, steady voice making him shiver inside. “What you said in that church…about salvation…it was the only thing that got me through.” 

“Yes, well….” Now it was Methos’ turn to stare down at his clenched fist. He had no idea where this conversation was headed. All he knew was that it was making him intensely uncomfortable.

“I’ve been blaming you for not being that Methos for all five-thousand years of your life, only….”

It almost took more courage than Methos had left for him to rasp out, “Only?”

“It wasn’t until tonight that I realized that you couldn’t have brought me through the Dark Quickening the way you did if you hadn’t ridden with the Horsemen.”

Methos forced himself to meet Mac’s eyes. They were clear and steady, with no hint of teasing or deceit. No matter how insane what MacLeod was saying sounded, Mac obviously believed it. 

Trying to hold it together, Methos questioned, “How so?”

“I was a rabid, blood-thirsty beast the day you found me and it didn’t phase you.”

Methos shrugged, “I’d seen worse.”

Hell, he’d been and bedded worse.

“Precisely, my point. You didn’t balk when it got ugly and….”

“And?” Methos whispered. For some reason, he was almost afraid to hear the rest.

“When you spoke of redemption, you weren’t patronizing me. You believed what you were saying…and you made me believe. Your…conviction came from personal experience. Darius used to talk that way about it, with a surety that made you believe that nothing was ever set in stone, that there was always hope. If you hadn’t known redemption yourself, you couldn’t have saved me.”

Not insane, after all, Methos recognized. MacLeod’s logic was faultless. Unfortunately, it was also completely wrong. 

“Sorry to disappoint you again, MacLeod,” Methos drawled, almost satisfied that the cynic had once again won out. “But you’re wrong.”

“About?”

In its own way, this was as hard as the moment when he’d chosen to cross swords with Silas in Bordeaux. Meeting those eyes, because he had to, Methos supplied, “I haven’t known redemption; I’ve lived in the hopes of it. There’s a difference.”

“What do you mean?”

“Redemption entails acceptance of the past, the courage to admit your wrongs and move on from there,” Methos explained.

“You’ve done that. You’ve changed….”

“I’ve run from my past and hidden what I was for two-thousand years. There hasn’t been a single person I trusted enough to come completely clean to in all that time.”

“You were pretty frank with Joe and me tonight,” MacLeod argued.

“Only because I had nothing left to lose.”

“Methos….”

“You said it yourself, Mac. Your trust in me is gone because you found out who I used to be three-thousand years ago-“

“No,” Mac corrected. “My faith in you was damaged because you lied to me and cut and ran after Cassandra showed up.”

“You said we were through,” Methos spat out.

“After you told me about being Death. After I found you bailing out like a rat from a sinking ship.” The betrayed anger was still there in Mac’s voice and stormy eyes.

“Are you telling me it would have been any different if I’d been upfront with you from the moment Cassandra showed up?” Methos challenged. “How would you have felt about me if I’d told you that I’d killed her entire village, kidnapped and raped her and thousands of others like her before I finally grew up?”

“We’ll never know. That’s not how that scene played out.”

Recognizing that they were once again back at square one, Methos sighed. “Like I said, Highlander, there hasn’t been any redemption for me. There never will. I’m not Darius. My entire personality wasn’t subsumed by some mystical Quickening. And to be honest, I wouldn’t want it to be. I’m just a guy who makes mistakes too big to be forgiven.” His fists balling even tighter on the table, Methos looked down into his empty glass. 

“Darius used to say that nothing was too big to be forgiven,” MacLeod said, his expression seeming to indicate that he was trying very hard to remember his teacher’s disciplines.

“Darius might’ve been able to forgive what I’ve done. Normal men can’t. Even you….”

“I can…and will,” Mac vowed. “I know I haven’t acted as if it’s true lately, but you’re a good man and a better friend, Methos.” 

“Right,” Methos snorted in disbelief. 

“Look at tonight, if you don’t believe me,” MacLeod said, as though his meaning would be immediately clear.

“What about tonight?” Methos questioned.

“You no more approved of what Byron had become than I did, yet your loyalty drove you to try to defend him.”

Methos straightened in his chair, wondering if that was really how MacLeod viewed tonight’s events.

“It was nothing so lofty as loyalty, MacLeod,” Methos corrected, made weary to the bone by the basic misunderstandings between them. “I just…there have been too many deaths. I didn’t want to lose another friend. And I didn’t disapprove of him. Minds as brilliant as his can’t be held to the same standards as the rest of us.”

“You sound just like Byron,” MacLeod complained.

Two-and-a-half centuries ago, that comparison would have been the highest praise Methos could have attained. But, tonight, it wasn’t a compliment; at least it wasn’t coming from MacLeod’s mouth. 

“Perhaps. He was lost in his pain, MacLeod, driven mad by the emptiness inside,” Methos tried to defend his fallen lover, as he’d failed to defend Byron from MacLeod earlier tonight at the concert arena.

“Oh, give me a break,” Mac spat, his face twisting with distaste. “He was a malicious sadist who got off on the misery and deaths of innocent mortals.”

Methos closed his eyes, trying to see Byron as the dissolute drug addict he’d met here in Paris and not as the vibrant genius who’d stolen the very words of his poetry from the Muses’ own lips two-hundred years ago. But it was impossible for Methos to divorce the present-day Byron from his memory of the man. Byron would always be passion and flame to him, and, like all fires, Byron was often indiscriminate as to who fell in his path. Byron’s crimes weren’t the same as Methos’ own foul past. They were merely the price of genius.

“It wasn’t malice, MacLeod; it was envy,” Methos wearily corrected.

“Envy?” MacLeod skeptically echoed.

“Of their ability to feel. He had nothing left inside of him. You took his Quickening. You know the kind of emptiness he lived with.”

The anger left Mac’s face at Methos’ reference to the Quickening. Even among friends, they rarely spoke of these things. What an Immortal received when he took another’s head was too personal, too private for discussion. Mac seemed to wage a silent war before he finally offered, “Methos, I took the Quickening of a man who’d numbed his feelings with drugs and drowned his genius with self-pity. He was no emptier inside than you or I. He just indulged his melancholy to a higher degree.”

“How can you say that? He….”

“He wasn’t the same man you knew,” Mac argued, his voice and demeanor incredibly gentle.

_Not the same man he knew…not the hero poet who’d lived Childe Harold’s life, not the wild debaucher who’d fucked his teacher in a fierce whirlwind of possessive lust, not the jealous, egotistical genius who’d decried Methos’ pathetic attempt at story telling as plagiarism…._

_Enough!_

He was not going there; he was not going to lose himself in a well of self-pity. The past was dead. He alone lived on to mourn it and drown the pain in drink, the same as always. 

The silence was deafening, the quiet so complete that MacLeod’s gulp sounded like a shout.

Methos’ entire body jerked, then froze as MacLeod’s broader, darker hand covered his own and gave it a squeeze. Mac’s hand didn’t immediately abandon him. It stayed there and held firm.

“I…Methos, I’m sorry for the pain this has caused you. I’m not sorry I did it, because it needed doing, but I am sorry you got caught in the crossfire. I know how close you two were….

Methos squeezed his eyes shut again. The last thing he needed was to be reminded of Mac knowing yet another embarrassment in his sordid past. It had taken him decades to get beyond the public humiliation the ending of his affair with Lord Byron had incurred. To have Mac know all the dirty details from Byron’s point of view…it was almost unbearable.

Filled with a self-loathing it had taken him a hundred and fifty years to master, Methos hissed, “You mean you know how besotted I was. You needn’t be so kind, MacLeod. I was there. I know what it was.”

To his consternation, MacLeod’s hand didn’t leave his own. Instead, it tightened in a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t….

The pleading note made Methos open his eyes and look. Hard as it was to sit here, knowing Mac knew the whole of it, up to and including Doc Polidori’s pathetic ‘suicide’ in 1821, Methos none-the-less forced himself to hold MacLeod’s gaze. “Don’t what?”

“You offered that egotistical bastard a gift he was too blind to recognize…. 

Methos snorted. Leave it to MacLeod to romanticize something like that. The man was truly astounding. “I was a pathetic sycophant who got his just desserts, nothing more than another one of his groupies, MacLeod.”

“You were his teacher and friend,” MacLeod countered.

“How can you say that? You must have seen….

“I saw that he was a user who didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything but himself.”

“No,” Methos shook his head, “you didn’t know him then. He was like a comet, MacLeod. He filled the entire sky with his brilliance….

MacLeod sighed in obvious exasperation. “How can you say that? You know how he treated people…how he treated you….”

“He never asked for me or anyone else to feel that way.” 

Just as MacLeod had never asked for these feelings to exist, Methos acknowledged, wondering if he were fated to go through eternity never once earning reciprocity in love once his real self were known. Perhaps that was a fitting punishment for the man who’d once been Death – to grow a heart that ached for love, but to be ever deemed unworthy of it because of his past. 

“And that excused his behavior?” Mac challenged.

Methos shrugged. “What can it matter now?”

“It matters,” MacLeod said, his voice thick and low.

Unable to meet that stare in his shame, Methos looked down at the table, where Mac’s hand still had his own trapped. The single point of simple contact was making it impossible for Methos to think straight. 

He swallowed hard. His mouth felt so dry. The heat must have kicked in because his apartment no longer seemed cold. To the contrary, it was boiling now, hot as Hades, hot as Mac’s palm…. 

MacLeod’s fingers moved to grip his hand tighter.

His gaze shot up to Mac’s face. In the wake of his earlier loss of control where he’d given his desires away, Methos didn’t know how to interpret the gesture. MacLeod had never touched him quite this way before.

If he’d hoped for inspiration or explanation from his companion, he was utterly disappointed. He’d never seen such uncertainty on the normally confident Scot’s face.

Their eyes locked. The moment stretched. The tension that had existed between them from day one built to unbearable levels as they sat motionless with MacLeod basically holding his hand.

Methos couldn’t think over the thunder of his pounding heart. It felt like it was trying to hammer its way out of his chest. The air was so strained and thick that he could barely pull it into his lungs. His guts clenched up tight in a reaction that felt like terror, but wasn’t.

A man couldn’t live five-thousand years without learning to recognize the basic physical laws that governed human interaction. Apparently, a man couldn’t live four-hundred years without doing so either.

MacLeod’s expression made it plain that he’d finally correctly interpreted the sexual tension for what it was. Leave it to the Boy Scout to take three years to recognize the force that had governed their relationship from day one. Methos, for his own part, knew that he could have eaten MacLeod alive the first day Mac had shown up at his flat looking for the historian Adam Pierson, but MacLeod, for all his sexual experience with women, never seemed to recognize the attraction for what it was.

And now that Mac did, Methos wasn’t sure that it changed anything at all.

Methos knew Mac was straight. He knew the proper response here was to pull his hand free, mumble some excuse, and change the atmosphere with a macho joke to get things back on an even keel between them again. Lord knew, he’d had three long years of practice at avoiding this very situation, but…the lack of disgust in Mac’s admittedly hesitant features made him sit still and wait it out. 

Mac wanted honesty from him. It didn’t get more honest than this. This was who he was. What he felt for MacLeod was quite possibly the definitive emotion of his life. To continue to deny it was as good as lying.

Methos braced himself as Mac’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t avert his gaze. There was enough of Death’s arrogance left in him for Methos to hold his head up high while awaiting judgment. 

Mac gulped again. His gaze lowered to their joined hands for a moment. 

Methos steeledf for the inevitable rejection. He knew how this scene always played out. Hell, they’d already enacted it at the club just a few short hours ago. This would end no differently…it couldn’t. Methos knew exactly how it would go. Mac would pull his hand back, then there’d be an incredibly awkward silence before the Highlander shot to his feet to make his escape. Though never with a friend as close or important as Mac, Methos had been in this situation before, where a straight man would find himself responding to Methos’ more nebulous sexuality. They always bailed and the friendship was always ruined.

But Mac neither panicked nor bolted. Though Methos could see the broad chest pull in a startled drag of air and feel the tension tightening the body so close to him, MacLeod stayed where he was, those mysterious, dark eyes locked with Methos’ own.

He was five-thousand years old. He should be able to read this younger Immortal as easily as a child’s primer. Duncan MacLeod was as predictable as the tides; that certainty was part of his appeal. There should be no question of Mac’s response, only the inevitable, mortifying rejection. But…the Highlander did not pull back from him.

After what felt an eternity of tense waiting, MacLeod’s grip on his hand altered and Methos found his trapped limb being lifted towards the Scot’s face. Everything inside the five-thousand year old Immortal froze up in shock as Mac’s full lips pressed against his knuckles. The unexpected gesture was just so romantic, so completely outside Methos’ experience of male sexuality that he didn’t know how to respond to it, and was therefore devastated by it.

Mac’s lips were dry and firm, the moisture that slipped out between them was startlingly hot on his knuckles. 

Methos sucked in a shaky breath, totally undone by the raw sensuality of this holdover of the chivalric code that Methos had always scoffed at as being too corny for words. It was like 20,000 volts of raw electric current shot through him at the touch of Mac’s mouth to his hand. The visceral rush of the contact was powerful as a Quickening, overwhelming. Methos tried to control it, but a shocked, cut-off moan still escaped him. 

Mac had been concentrating on what he was doing, but now the Highlander’s gaze lifted to meet his own. Methos had no difficulty reading his friend’s shock at his vocal response. He could see those dark eyes taking in his state, determining how much this meant to him, how much he was moved by even this simple contact.

Methos felt his cheeks flush with shame as he looked away from that too-perceptive gaze. He wanted this man too much for either his peace of mind or safety.

He wasn’t accustomed to being off balance during sex. In five millennia of hard living, Methos had pretty much played out every role imaginable. But he couldn’t fit what was happening here with MacLeod into any of his usual safe boxes. Mac wasn’t a conqueror like Kronos, a manipulative seducer like Byron, or a horny one-night stand; he was just Mac, being as devastatingly gentle as only Duncan MacLeod could be. 

Methos didn’t know what to expect, for he didn’t understand what had motivated MacLeod’s action. All he knew was that it couldn’t be what it appeared to be. Despite MacLeod’s sudden turnaround this evening, Methos knew that Mac thought him a moral degenerate. MacLeod wouldn’t want him this way…couldn’t. Four-hundred years of Watchers’ reports couldn’t be mistaken. It had to be something different – curiosity, payback, even jealousy…all were possibilities, for Mac had any number of reasons for wanting to put Methos in his place, but none would explain the tenderness of MacLeod’s approach. 

He knew that Mac had to be toying with him. The Highlander had Byron’s lifeforce and a montage of the poet’s memories rattling around inside him…Mac now knew how susceptible Methos was to this kind of manipulation. Although this type of teasing wasn’t MacLeod’s normal style, it had been Byron’s. So soon after a Quickening, it was hard to say who was calling the shots. Methos couldn’t count the number of times Byron would turn him on like this, with a gentle stroke to his cheek or squeeze of his hand…then Lord Byron would laugh in his face and walk away, smug in his conquest.

His heart would shrivel up and die if Mac started playing those kinds of games with him. At least the contempt and cold distance of the past six months signified some form of respect was still present. But this….

This wasn’t payback or manipulation, Methos realized as he took stock of the other Immortal’s expression. The concern and tentative hope gentling those dark eyes were not the look of a sadistic manipulator. If anything, Mac seemed afraid of offending. 

The sincerity came as a total shock to him, and, as such, Methos had no clue as to how to deal with it. Mac truly appeared almost afraid of the response he would receive.

“W-why….” It was more of a rasp than a question, but it was the only word Methos could get out.

He almost sobbed as his hand was abandoned, but instead of pulling back, MacLeod leaned forward and reached for his shoulders. 

“Methos….” 

He’d never had that thick, passionate tone leveled at him before. He’d caught echoes of it while watching Duncan court Amanda. While those voyeuristic ventures had given him a vicarious thrill, they didn’t destroy him the way those two simple syllables did. Mac could have carved him apart, taken his heart, head, or genitals at that moment and Methos would have died a happy man. 

But Mac didn’t kill or maim him as Kronos would have when presented with such vulnerability. What the Highlander did was move in for a kiss. If those lips had been electric on his coarse knuckles, they were downright nuclear when placed against Methos’ stunned mouth. It was like being in the heart of an atomic bomb. The heat was searing, melting flesh and bone.

Methos was so shocked that all he could do at first was sit still as a wax sculpture and allow the kiss to happen. He certainly liquefied like one of Madam Tussaude’s creations under the blast of the contact. He’d seen MacLeod in action before, but he’d never been on the receiving end of this sweet attention.

There was a hesitation to Mac’s approach that was strangely endearing. MacLeod was moving as though he expected to have his head handed to him on a platter at any moment. The initial brushing of their mouths had no force behind it. It was almost as though MacLeod were allowing Methos to set the pace.

But the pace of what? For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why Mac was kissing him. He reconsidered his earlier assessment of MacLeod. Was it possible that Mac had always been conscious of the sexual tension operating between them, and simply ignored it for the sake of their friendship? If so, Methos couldn’t fathom why that had changed now. Mac had run from his desire before. That was a real and honest reaction. This was…incomprehensible. 

But while it might be incomprehensible, Mac’s kiss was exciting as hell.

He shivered as a wet, hot tongue swiped against his closed lips, irresistibly inviting. Mac could have plunged in and forced the issue. In the Quickenings MacLeod had taken, the Highlander had no doubt seen what Methos was accustomed to. Male sex and violence were almost inextricably bound together in Methos’ past. They both knew that he would submit to a more forceful male.

But Mac just licked across his dry lips, teasing, playing, seducing him with tenderness.

Methos’ mouth opened of its own accord because there simply was no alternative. There was only Duncan MacLeod…kissing him. 

Juicy was his first thought as he sampled the flavors Mac’s tongue brought over. 

The scotch was uppermost in the taste blast, but right below it was the tangy flavor that was naturally MacLeod. Mac tasted like he smelt…strong, male, warm and wonderful. Definitely wonderful.

The tips of their tongues touched, velvety rough taste buds sampling each other as they slipped around the limited space in Methos’ mouth in a strangely elegant dance.

Both of MacLeod’s hands rose to grip the sides of Methos’ head, his fingers scrabbling for a hold in the older Immortal’s short spiky hair. As the kiss deepened, Mac leaned forward…and disaster struck. 

The ninety-year-old wooden chair, which Mac was tilting forward, went out from beneath the Highlander, Methos’ following suite when two-hundred pounds of solid muscle abruptly landed on him. They clattered down in a painful crash of shattered wood and impacting bodies.

Methos yelped as the back of his skull thunked against the edge of the sink on his quick descent. His vision blacked to a field of bright, painful stars. Blinded by the sudden pain, he narrowly avoided ending up with Mac’s knee in his groin; the heavy weight banged his upper thigh instead. Though not entirely without discomfort, the collision was much less catastrophic than it would have been if the knee had landed two inches further to the right.

For a stunned moment, they both just lay there on the floor in the detritus of the kitchen chairs, with the heavier Highlander doing his unintentional best to make Methos into a Rorshock blot on the linoleum. 

The only thing preventing Methos from roaring his head off at this preposterous happenstance was the fact that there was too much weight crushing down on his lungs for him to draw breath for laughter. What little oxygen he had rushed out of him in a grunt as MacLeod shifted up enough to look down at his face.

“God, I’m sorry, Methos. Are you all right?” MacLeod’s hand moved to cautiously probe the back of his head. 

Mac looked so horrified that Methos couldn’t help but grin. But his smile slipped from his face as he took in the degree of open anxiety visible in the Scot’s expression. Mac was acting as though Methos were something precious and fragile, as though the lump wasn’t already healing, as though Methos hadn’t known Kronos, Byron and a dozen others of their ilk who considered lumps, abrasions, contusions, and blood a necessary byproduct of sex. And, Gods help him, Methos simply didn’t know how to deal with a man like this. 

The lump seemed to have moved from the back of his head to his throat, where it tripled in size until Methos felt as though he had one of MacLeod’s golf balls lodged down there. It was three swallows before he could even attempt speech.

“I won’t break, MacLeod,” he croaked out, but the comment sounded shaky to his own ears.

“I know,” MacLeod rasped back, shifting until he was lying beside, rather than on top of, Methos. The calloused fingers of his right hand rose to lightly stroke Methos’ temple.

His stomach dropped out on him then. That soft touch made him quake in a way that blows or knife wounds never had. He was frightened, more scared than he’d been the day Kalas had bested him, perhaps even more afraid than when Kronos had finally caught up with him six months ago. This tenderness could destroy him in a way that violence never could.

“Mac, you don’t have to….”

“Don’t have to what?” MacLeod asked, his hand stilling, his eyes digging right into Methos’ troubled soul.

“Waste the effort. I’m not Amanda. I can take it,” he promised and felt like an untutored child at the expression which sparked in those dark eyes. It wasn’t pity, but the emotion MacLeod was telegraphing was uncomfortably close to it.

“I don’t see it as wasted effort,” MacLeod answered in a gruff tone.

Hating the borderline pity nearly as much as his own fear, Methos persevered with, “What I mean is, you can let go. You don’t need the kid gloves with me.”

“What are you saying?” Mac asked, upfront as ever.

“Just that…it can be as wild as you want. We can…work our differences out this way…and both still keep our heads,” even as he spoke the words, Methos couldn’t believe that he was saying them to the original white knight. But there was a well of panic within him that made him need to translate this encounter into something familiar, something he could handle. Mac judging him and punishing him, he could live with. But this gentle seduction…were he playing a role here, Methos might have been able to take it in stride, but Mac’s knowing his past made him feel…unworthy of the kindness.

Steering away from the disturbing feelings inspired by that kiss to his knuckles, Methos concentrated on the facts he knew, those things he was certain of. Despite MacLeod’s claims to the contrary in the past few minutes, Methos knew that Duncan was still furious with him. If Mac purged that anger on his flesh, Methos thought that he might get his friend back. The logic had always worked in the past. Kronos had never wanted to kill him after a night of hard fucking. This might be the way to finally lay MacLeod’s resentments to rest.

There was one fault to the plan. Mac wasn’t Kronos. The suggestion alone might be enough to turn MacLeod off. His friend was such a gentleman…such a prude in some ways. 

The handsome face so close to his own furrowed into a frown. Methos could almost see Mac sorting through whatever memories he’d taken from Kronos with his Quickening, absorbing the savage, bloody nights Methos had spent in his leader’s bed, no doubt moving on to the newer images MacLeod had picked up from Byron tonight. Though nowhere near as violent as the services Kronos had required of him, there was little tenderness to be found there either. Restraint and consideration had never been Lord Byron’s strong points. 

And then there was always that shared Quickening to consider, those moments when they’d gotten a clearer look at each other’s souls than any two friends should have to endure. If he wasn’t damned by Kronos and Byron’s memories, then that little illumination was certainly enough to make Mac see that Methos was the last candidate worthy of a typical MacLeod seduction.

Methos held his breath, waiting the inevitable judgment. Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod would doubtless be scandalized by the suggestion that the Highlander partake of even some of what Methos had done in the past. He waited…and waited, but the anticipated disgust failed to appear. 

Relaxing a bit, Methos changed mental gears. He’d always known that his friend had hidden depths. 

All Immortals had their dark sides, even Duncan MacLeod. He was fairly sure that Mac would never torture him like Kronos, but Methos had seen enough of MacLeod’s evil twin during the Dark Quickening to know that the Highlander was more than capable of taking a walk on the wild side. Intellectually, Mac knew that Methos wasn’t the same man who’d committed those awful crimes three millennia ago, but emotionally, the child in Mac couldn’t forgive Methos for disappointing him. It was that part of MacLeod that was angry at him, that part that wanted his head. If Methos could appease that beast, it was possible they might find their way back to where they’d been before Cassandra’s arrival.

“Just let go, MacLeod,” he urged.

“And?” the Highlander asked with tight control. Though Mac’s face was creased with emotion, Methos couldn’t interpret its source. 

“Anything you want. Our kind are hard to kill,” he offered in his most seductive tone, consciously removing all resistance from his body, letting his pliancy communicate his willingness to submit to anything MacLeod might need from him to make things right between them again. 

This wasn’t what Methos had hoped to find with MacLeod, but the last six months had made it plain that any chance of getting what he’d hungered for was shot to hell. He’d rather violence than pity, and, considering all that had passed between them, Methos couldn’t conceive that MacLeod would bed him out of anything but anger or feeling sorry for him.

“Is that all you’ve known?” MacLeod softly questioned, not jumping Methos’ bones and immediately having at it as Methos had anticipated, and perhaps even wanted on some level. There was as much absolution as catharsis in that kind of unbridled sex.

“Is what all I’ve known?”

“I saw you with Alexa,” the words were tentatively offered, as if Mac were afraid of hurting with them. “You know what it is to love.”

“Alexa wasn’t my judge,” Methos spat out. The last thing he needed to be reminded of tonight was his latest insufferable loss. Sometimes her very name was like a blade to his heart. She’d never known who he really was, but Alexa had loved him for whom he was at that moment in time.

“Neither am I,” MacLeod countered. His voice was hard as steel, for all that the hands resting on Methos’ shoulders were light.

“Then what is this about? You’re not…you don’t bed men. If you don’t want to bugger me through the floorboards as punishment forrrrumfph…” a firm palm smothered the rest of his crude question.

“I’m not goin’ta punish you with sex,” Mac firmly stated. “It doesn’t have to be that way between us.”

Methos squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe around the slightly clammy hand pressed right under his nostrils. Mac’s palm smelt of sweat and the ivory of his katana. It was a sad testament to the twisted state of his sexuality that the force behind the hands holding him was turning Methos on almost as hard as MacLeod’s kiss had earlier.

Slowly, the palm lifted from his mouth, allowing him speech.

Methos gulped and tried to explain himself, but he could find no words. Why Mac’s being gentle with him should frighten him more than violence was inexplicable. This was one of those horrible situations that seemed to keep going from bad to worse. 

For a long, unnerving moment his companion’s dark eyes simply stared at him. Finally, Mac cleared his throat and said, “I’m not your judge, man. You’re my friend.” MacLeod’s brogue was so thick as to be nearly incomprehensible. The vowel in the ‘my’ seemed to go on forever.

Mac’s chest was heaving like he’d run six miles, his face more troubled than Methos could recall seeing it throughout their stormy acquaintance.

As if Methos had made another argument, MacLeod insisted, “That’s not what you want for us. Methos, I know you. That’s not what you want.”

Holding that upset gaze was the hardest thing Methos had ever done in his life. Sucking in a hot, MacLeod-scented breath, he softly confessed, “It’s never been about what I want. Not once in five-thousand years.”

“But you told me you’ve had over sixty wives…” Duncan’s confusion was complete. MacLeod didn’t seem to doubt his word anymore. The man simply didn’t seem capable of comprehending Methos’ motivations.

Uncertain if he could ever explain, Methos tried with, “I’ve had sixty-eight lovers whom I cherished – and hid from – every day we were together. None of them knew a thing about my past. Kronos was the only one who ever knew the real me and he….”

Raped and tortured him on a regular basis, the only person who’d ever really known him. In a unique moment of clarity, Methos was chilled by that acknowledgement…and what it seemed to say about himself.

“Kronos wasn’t your lover,” MacLeod corrected. “Lovers don’t use knives and chains. They don’t leave bruises. They don’t….”

“Reject you for not living up to their standards?” Methos couldn’t resist the dig. Kronos might have been an animal, but none of the physical pain the leader of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse had ever inflicted upon him came near the degree of hurt Duncan MacLeod turning away from him had caused.

“That, too,” Mac acknowledged after a too quiet moment. “Is that what this is about? You see me the same as him?”

“No,” Methos instantly denied, not wanting that big a misunderstanding between them.

“Then how could you even think I could do what he did?” Mac shook his head, the tension lines that formed around his eyes told Methos how disturbed MacLeod was with the entire idea. “You’re my friend. I don’t need to hurt you. Whatever’s wrong between us, we can work it out.”

“What if it’s what I need?”

“You need to be hurt? I don’t believe that. I **won’t** believe it.” Duncan insisted, his face a study in incomprehension. “Why…why would you want that? I know you. You don’t like pain.”

And yet he was here, asking for it, almost hungering for it. There had to be a reason. Why would MacLeod’s tenderness frighten him so? Mac was right. It wasn’t as though he’d known nothing but abusive sex. For the last six-hundred years, Methos had made it a point to be involved mostly with gentle lovers. Byron was the exception, rather than the rule, these days. Yet here he was, pleading for this kindest of men to hurt him. There had to be a reason. 

Methos looked down and searched his heart, finally coming up with an answer he could share. Daring that gaze again, he carefully suggested, “Reparation?” 

“A pound of flesh?” MacLeod asked, his feelings on the matter completely unfathomable.

Hearing the words literally, Methos suppressed a shudder. He’d been with men who had demanded that of him, and more. Kronos had once cut half his hamstrings out after an escape attempt…taking far more than a pound of flesh. 

Steeling himself, Methos answered, “If that’s what it takes.”

“How can you think that my hurting you will somehow make things right between us?” Mac asked, with no sign of comprehending such a need. 

“Because it might. Because you’re still angry at me and need to vent, because…” Methos floundered. 

“Because if I hurt you enough, the guilt might make me forgive?” MacLeod suggested with no apparent rancor, just that amazing understanding that Mac sometimes had about the strangest things.

“Freud would be proud,” Methos acknowledged, doing his best not to let his shame show.

Mac gulped and looked away for a moment. When he turned back, he’d gotten control of himself, his features calm and unreadable.

“I’m that important to you?” Mac asked.

Methos squeezed his eyes shut, then slowly reopened them. Taking a deep breath, he quietly questioned. “What would you have me say, MacLeod?” To his intense relief, and equal bewilderment, Mac did not make him crawl. Instead, the Highlander shimmied closer to him and reached for him.

With all this talk of hurting, Methos couldn’t help but flinch.

“God, man, do you really think that I could…?” MacLeod’s shocked question trailed off. After a moment, he asked in a gentler tone, “Pain and betrayal really are all you’ve known; aren’t they?”

Methos didn’t want to talk about it, but MacLeod was making the effort to understand and…no one had ever gone to that trouble before. For once Mac wasn’t judging him and storming out the door; the Highlander was just lying there in their uncomfortable bed of splintered chairs, no doubt attempting to figure out what made a five-thousand-year-old man tick.

“It’s all I’ve known with men of our kind,” Methos offered at last, watching his friend’s face, trying to interpret every fleeting emotion. At least MacLeod didn’t outright condemn him for his homosexual encounters. Mac’s level gaze compelled him to explain, “Most…like Kronos…got off on the pain and domination.”

“And Byron?” Duncan asked, obviously attempting to make sense of whatever memories Methos’ old friend had given him tonight. Though nowhere near as violent as Kronos’ recollections, Methos knew that there was little in his whirlwind affair with the poet to commend itself to MacLeod’s sensibilities.

“What we shared was always more important to me than him.” Methos broke that gaze and lowered his lashes, hit with a chilling sense of déjà vu as he recognized that he could just as easily be speaking about himself and MacLeod. Determined to give the entire truth, despite the fact that he knew his pride was history now, Methos continued with, “With Byron, I took whatever I could get.” He looked over into those watching brown eyes and admitted, “I’ll do the same with you, Mac. Just name your terms.”

There, he’d done it -- laid every last shred of dignity he possessed out in the open for the other man to rip away. There would be no going back from here, not ever, just as there had been no going back when he’d offered his bum to Kronos to spare his life four-thousand years ago.

“We’re not negotiating a treaty here,” Mac rasped out, those piercing, emotion-torn eyes scouring Methos’ face as though searching for subterfuge.

“Aren’t we?” Methos quietly challenged of the man at his side.

“No, we’re not. This is us.”

“So, what do you want, then?” Methos asked, at his wit’s end. His nerves were fried. All he had was his need…twisted as that need might be.

“I want you to close your eyes…and your mouth,” Mac added with an exasperated snort, “and trust me. Can you do that?”

He would have been happier if he’d been asked to offer up that proverbial pound of flesh, Methos wryly acknowledged. Once again, MacLeod was putting him in the untenable position of having to make a leap of faith…to trust in what was, without having the details solidly ironed out…rather like what he was asking MacLeod to do when it came to his own past, Methos realized. They’d both seen the worst of each other during these last six months. Neither one of them had any reason to even try to trust. 

Fifty centuries worth of self-preservation instincts were screaming at Methos not to enter into anything blind. But…he’d already offered Duncan his body as a punching bag and his Quickening as an act of contrition; MacLeod had refused both. He didn’t know what Mac wanted of him, but it wasn’t death or dismemberment. That should have comforted him, but the known was always easier to accept, even when all that was known was violent abuse. 

Methos opened his mouth and croaked out a sound. Swallowing hard, he tried again. 

“I…can try.”

Feeling as though he were tottering on a cliff edge, with jagged rocks below him and a gale trying to rip him off his unsteady perch, Methos braced himself.

He heard Mac draw in a sharp breath. MacLeod’s expression seemed to say that he appreciated how difficult this was for Methos.

Then those muscular arms were reaching for him, drawing him nearer, close, so close that no distance separated them at all…and suddenly things like pride, self-respect and the inevitable, disastrous consequences were meaningless. All that mattered was Duncan’s mouth, the hands moving over him, and the warm weight settling carefully on top of him. 

Mac worked enthusiastically at his mouth. Those full lips kneaded against Methos’ own in a frenzy to get closer. Methos opened up to Mac and let it happen, drinking in all the sweet juices, shivering as MacLeod’s heat found all his cold spots and warmed them.

Four-hundred years of Watchers’ Reports had done nothing to warn Methos of the sheer sensuality of a Duncan MacLeod seduction. Hell, five millennia of living hadn’t prepared him for it. He’d known MacLeod had the fire, for Methos was always attracted to intensely passionate men, but Mac was like nothing he’d ever experienced before – as wild as Kronos, skilled as Byron, wilful as Caesar…but all of it tempered with a gentle care that only added to the ferocity of the experience. To touch the flame and remain safe…always in the past Methos had had to pay dearly for the fire he borrowed. 

As Mac’s hands carded through the short spikes of his hair, his thrusting tongue promising things to come, Methos couldn’t help but wonder if this was what it was to trust…to lie beneath someone who could maim or slay you without effort, sure in the knowledge that it would never happen. While there had been a certain masochistic thrill to never knowing from one second to the next when the tide would turn and the hurting would start, this was better, so much better, Methos decided, almost purring as that masterful mouth slipped to his neck. He turned his head to allow better access, crushing his face against the rungs of his shattered chair.

Mac’s slick tongue left a trail of moisture behind it as it swept down the side of his throat. The flow of warm breath over the lingering wetness was the most shiversome delight Methos had felt in centuries. Gods, perfect didn’t begin to describe it. The man was so intense, so sensual…Mac was…Mac was withdrawing, pulling back….

Methos gasped as his wet neck was left to the mercy of the cold apartment air, almost sobbing as all that fire deserted him. His body felt bereft without its blanket of warm, dense muscles.

“This isn’t going to work, Methos,” MacLeod announced.

“What?” Methos was too shocked to even try to moderate his response. Every muscle he owned turned to lead as the rejection penetrated his stupor. A couple of kisses and Mac was bailing? And he’d thought Byron cruel?

“You’re squashed in the wood,” Mac said, reaching out to irritably shove the chair rung away from Methos’ cheek. “If we keep this up, you’re gonna get splinters.”

The relief flooded through him, fierce as an orgasm.

“Splinters?” Methos gaped. He’d been so focused on MacLeod that Methos hadn’t honestly been conscious of how…inundated he was by the debris. Now that he looked, he realized that there were shards of wood all around and under him. Not that it mattered. Kronos had taken him naked in nettles once. He’d have suffered that and more to be close to MacLeod. And Mac was worrying about a few wood chips?

The absurdity of it all hit him. His chuckle turned into explosive laughter, with a near hysterical edge. Once he started, he didn’t seem to be able to stop. The release was more addictive than heroin; perhaps better than sex, though Methos would wait to make that judgement until after he’d slept with MacLeod.

MacLeod’s expression went from confusion to amusement, then he, too, was laughing as well. “Methos, what are we laughing at?” Mac breathlessly interjected into a lull in the merriment.

“Does it matter?” Methos asked, stretching out beside his lover, knocking wood chips all over, starting them both off giggling again.

“God,” Mac gasped at last. “That felt good. I’ve…missed this between us. I’ve…missed you.”

Ambushed by the guileless expression of genuine emotion, Methos sobered immediately. “Ditto.”

Mac gave his lips a fast kiss and struggled up to a sitting position.

The fond light in the eyes gazing down at him melted something inside of Methos. Feeling very young and unconcernedly foolish, Methos rested his right hand on the dark denim covering the bend of MacLeod’s knee, just because he had the freedom to do so now.

Methos’ forefinger played along the inseam there, eliciting a gasp from his friend. Pleased, Methos saw the already impressive basket at the front of Mac’s pants surge and grow larger.

Mac’s hand covered his own, stopping him and holding him still there. The dark brown gaze just stared at their joined hands for what seemed the longest time before meeting Methos’ eyes again. 

“Second thoughts?” Methos questioned, praying that he’d have the strength to accept. Mac’s reconsidering wouldn’t really surprise him since he didn’t understand what had motivated MacLeod in the first place. There was the Quickening, of course, that was often enough to inspire an Immortal to take a walk on the wild side, but never MacLeod, at least, never with a male partner.

“No, no second thoughts,” Mac’s response was immediate. The pressure on his captured hand was released, then, as if unable to stop themselves, Mac’s fingertips rubbed over the dark hair on Methos’ arm. “It’s just…new, you know?”

Shivering at that caress to a previously near insensitive zone, Methos used Mac’s knee for balance and hoisted himself into a sitting position, amid a veritable shower of splintered wood. Methos settled them knee to knee, across from each other. Once they were eye level again, he gave a slow nod. “I know.”

MacLeod’s head tilted to the right like a cocker spaniel’s, watching him out of those incredibly soulful puppy dog eyes. “You do?”

“I’ve never done chivalry before, Mac,” he admitted with a wry, self-deprecating smile, adding in a more serious tone, “You’re a whole new world to me.” 

“That’s how it feels.”

Wondering if his physiology were as frightening to Mac as losing MacLeod’s respect was to him, Methos lowered his eyes and softly assured, “This new path you’re forging, it needn’t go anywhere the old ones didn’t.”

Mac snorted. “I think we’re past the hand-holding stage, Methos.” 

He tensed as MacLeod’s finger hooked his chin and raised his head back up. 

The lyrics to that old Peter Gabriel song, _In Your Eyes_ , played through Methos’ mind. The light, the heat in that remarkable gaze filled his entire world as Mac’s other hand rose to stroke his cheek in a devastatingly tender caress.

“Bed?” MacLeod questioned, his expression nowhere near as sure as his touch and tone. The fact that this was the Highlander’s first time with another man was written all over MacLeod. 

His throat closing up tight on him again; all Methos could do was nod. This was it – the moment he’d lived the last three years anticipating. 

Despite his claim to the contrary, Mac did actually take his hand once they’d both gained their feet and shaken all the tan wood splinters off. It should have felt strange, two men as sexually experienced as they were clinging to each other like tots on the way to the school toilet, but the touch was comforting and natural. 

MacLeod’s palm was as clammy as his own, which was somehow reassuring. An Immortal his age shouldn’t be this nervous about simple sex, but…nothing he’d ever felt for MacLeod had been simple. From frustration to anger to desire, the emotions Mac inspired were always overwhelming.

Without another word, Methos turned and led his companion to the sleeping alcove. 

The huge, truncated sculpture keeping vigil at the top of the double bed seemed to give Mac pause. The backlighting behind it did give the piece an eerie air, Methos allowed. Even he could feel how the very room seemed to breathe with the antiquity of the statue.

Methos was so inured to his flat that he often forgot how strange the ancient artifacts were to the unprepared. Mac visited here so rarely that even the living room was new territory. To Methos’ knowledge, this was the first time Mac had ventured into this part of the flat. 

All Immortals tended to have unusual dwellings, especially the eldest of them, and there was no one older than himself. Their kind were no different than mortals, in that they often grew attached to their belongings. Nine-hundred years ago, a piece like the Welsh wooden throne would have fit unnoticed into any noblemen’s keep, but these days, it stood out as much as the ancient statue MacLeod was studying. 

The blue lighting Methos used at night to keep him from stumbling into some of his irreplaceable furnishings on his way to the loo made one feel as if they’d fallen into some bizarre, non-liquid fish tank.

Methos appreciated that this had to be weird as hell for Mac. The surroundings alone were enough to unnerve most people. Add to that the fact that MacLeod was having his first homosexual experience with the oldest Immortal on Earth, someone who’d already betrayed his trust once before, must be making this entire scene fairly intimidating. Yet, MacLeod was still here, still willing to bed one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That took a degree of courage – and confidence – that Methos had rarely encountered in his life.

“Persian?” MacLeod guessed the statue’s origin, stepping to the top of the bed to view the immense stone artifact up close.

Methos chuckled. MacLeod was a professional. It was rare that the antique dealer was ever wrong, but then again, Mac rarely handled anything this ancient. There were museum curators who wouldn’t be able to accurately date this piece. “Try a thousand years earlier. It’s Sumerian, a couple of centuries older than me, I think.”

Methos knew that the statue was an eyesore that probably belonged in a museum, but…it was one of the few things that had shared the entire scope of his lonely life. People, countries, and cultures came and went, but he and the limbless wonder here always tottered on together, unscathed by time.

His companion seemed impressed by the age of the piece. Methos waited for the inevitable questions – even Alexa had hated the thing and wanted to know why he kept it so near – but for once MacLeod seemed satisfied with a simple answer, which no doubt was an indication of his apprehension.

He watched Mac look around the blue-tinted room, taking in sculptures and the computer, his nervous gaze inexorably returning to the mattress and box spring that made up Methos’ low bed. It dominated the area. 

“There aren’t any bars on the door, Mac,” Methos softly volunteered. “My desire doesn’t necessitate action on your part.”

“No?” Mac questioned, seeming to shake himself out of whatever mood had fallen upon him when they’d entered Methos’ living space. MacLeod gave him a sheepish smile. “Don’t underestimate yourself. You necessitate action. You always have.”

Methos’ eyebrows shot up at the compliment. “Always?”

“Like I said, it’s never been the same with you. We’ve been….”

“Yes?” Methos prodded, curious to hear Duncan’s take on their relationship.

“I think we’ve been…dancing around this issue since the day we met.”

So MacLeod had felt it too, then. 

“Sometimes, I was sure we were flirting,” Mac continued, then hastily clarified, as though reluctant to offend, “It wasn’t anything you _said_. It was more the way you’d come in and take over my space and…it wouldn’t bother me, not the way it should have. There were times when we’d finish one of our little debates and I’d feel….”

“Yes?” Methos was nearly mesmerized by MacLeod’s earnest expression. 

“Strung out, like when Amanda would get miffed at me and play one of her teasing games that left me all twisted up with no relief in sight.” Mac was quiet for a moment before he finished with, “But I was too dense to recognize it for what it was.”

Startled by the regret in the serious tone, Methos counseled, “Not dense, MacLeod, merely wise. There was too much at stake.” 

“And there isn’t now?”

Methos shrugged. “It will either make or break us. It’s not like we have a lot left to lose at this point.”

“You don’t sound particularly optimistic here.”

Methos bowed his head in acknowledgement. “I’m too old to be an optimist.”

“You promised to trust me. This isn’t going to work if you don’t.”

“I don’t even know what _this_ is, MacLeod,” Methos admitted, shivering as the Highlander took a few steps closer to him.

“It’s what we make it, Methos,” Duncan replied.

Though the words were no doubt offered as consolation, they were anything but comforting. “The entire world was once mine and my brothers’ to make, and we drowned it in blood.”

To his consternation, he didn’t rattle MacLeod’s utterly incomprehensible – and utterly irritating – faith. “That was a long time ago. Another age, another you.”

“Sure of that, are you?” Methos challenged.

“Completely,” Mac said, holding his gaze until Methos had to lower his own. With all the wishing he’d done for a lover who could accept him, Death and all, it had never occurred to Methos how…frightening it would be to be that known, to stand naked without his artifices and shields to hide behind. 

“It’s going to be all right, Methos,” MacLeod promised as he closed the distance between them, sounding as though it were the elder Immortal’s first time with another man. 

MacLeod truly was extraordinary. He had to be nervous as hell, but he came right up to Methos and laid his palms on the outside of the elder Immortal’s arms, making the first move, making Methos believe his words through the sheer force of his will.

The kiss, when it came, was gentle, tentative, more of a learning experience than the prior ones had been. 

Methos slipped his arms under Mac’s elbows, encircling the trim waist. When his friend didn’t freeze or pull back, Methos trusted some of his weight to the other man. He pressed his front against MacLeod’s more solid body, letting his companion feel his desire, worried that it might be enough to scare Mac off.

Mac’s scent was all around him now, warm and wonderful. The heady bouquet made it impossible for Methos to think straight. His entire body was throbbing for this man, this incredible man who wanted neither his blood nor his Quickening. Methos couldn’t recall feeling like this since….

Truth was, he couldn’t remember feeling like this ever, not with another man. Even when they weren’t sadistic sociopaths like Kronos or even Immortals, there was always a wariness when dealing with other males on a sexual level that made it impossible for Methos to truly relax. But there was an inherent protectiveness in Mac’s embrace that spoke to something deep inside Methos, a part of him that hadn’t known comfort since he was a very young child. 

And the way Mac kissed! The full mouth owned Methos, melting them closer and closer together until their tongues and kneading lips moved as one. He’d certainly given up trying to figure out whose saliva was whose. All Methos knew was that it was wet and delicious.

The tension that was no doubt born of first time jitters gradually eased from the solid figure supporting him. As it did, Mac’s hands moved over his back with more confidence, rubbing, exploring.

At last, they drew apart for breath.

Methos felt like he was about to fall apart, totally undone by a simple kiss. He lowered his eyes to regroup, only to have Mac catch his cheek in that calloused palm and gently entreat, “Please, don’t hide from me anymore.”

Methos had never felt the need for concealment more. Those eyes saw too much. But he gave another assenting incline of his head and attempted to swallow, trying to relax. 

“You’re so…sure. How can you …?”

“I’m sure of you,” MacLeod whispered, rubbing Methos’ back in a comforting circle. “Everything else…will take some getting used to. But…we should probably get rid of some of these clothes. Don’t you think?” 

MacLeod’s understanding expression was about to finish Methos off.

He’d survived fifty centuries. He’d been taken by men since he was a child. There was nothing that a man could ask for in bed that Methos couldn’t deliver. In contrast, Duncan MacLeod had never known anything but a woman’s touch. It should have been the less experienced Immortal who was frozen here, but, though visibly nervous, MacLeod was incontestably the calmest of their pair.

When Methos made no protest, the Highlander reached for the bottom of Methos’ dark Henley. 

“All right?” Mac checked.

His mouth too dry for speech, Methos obligingly raised his arms over his head.

While Mac was busy pulling his shirt and undershirt off him, Methos slid down to his knees, aiding in the tops’ removal, assuming a position he was used to working from.

“Methos, what’re you…you don’t haveta….”

Methos raised his left eyebrow in reply and reached for the fastening of MacLeod’s black pants. He didn’t have to. He wanted to; he’d hungered for the taste of this man since the first day he’d laid eyes on MacLeod.  
Mac hissed in a breath as Methos undid the button and lowered the zipper.

Methos’ practiced eye took in the state of the flesh moving beneath the material. Mac was more than ready. 

Grabbing the waistband of the dark pants, Methos slid them from MacLeod’s hips, letting them pool around Duncan’s hairy knees. He was temporarily thwarted from viewing his prize by the front of the burgundy button-down shirt, the wrinkled material of which curtained down to conceal MacLeod’s groin. Methos’ unsteady fingers tackled the tiny white plastic buttons, carefully opening them one by one. He could feel Mac’s hungry gaze on him, anticipating his every move.

They both simultaneously gasped in a breath as the final button gave way. Methos pushed aside the folds of the shirt and then reached out to hitch Mac’s black tee shirt up the flat stomach. MacLeod’s briefs were stark white against his flesh. Methos swallowed hard as he took in the trail of dark body hair that ran down the center of that perfectly defined stomach to disappear into the elastic waistband of the briefs. While he watched, the bulge protruding at the front of the white cotton shifted and surged upwards. Looking close, Methos could see a spot of wetness darken the pristine material, visible proof of Mac’s excitement.

MacLeod’s hands settled on his shoulders. At first Methos thought the other man would pull him down to hurry the action along, the way Byron or Kronos would have forced him to move faster, but all Mac did was brace himself there. The fingers clutching his bare shoulders seemed to be hanging on for dear life. Even so, Mac’s fingernails never scratched or pierced his flesh.

Surprised, Methos caught the fine quiver that was coursing through those magnificent thighs and realized that MacLeod’s knees must have given out on him…from just the small bit of attention Methos had paid him so far. Stunned that this could mean so much to MacLeod, he reached for the briefs.

Mac hissed as the underpants slid from him, freeing his constrained erection.

As that hungry flesh bobbed up at him in all its throbbing glory, Methos sucked in a breath himself. It didn’t help calm his racing heart any. The scent of Mac’s desire was strong in the heated air. It made Methos’ head swim. Above him, he could hear MacLeod’s breath heaving like an overworked bellows in a steady, tortured rhythm.

For a long moment, Methos could just stare, frozen by the raw, animal beauty of the man he was worshipping. Like most of their kind, Mac was uncircumcised. His foreskin was already drawn back, the moist tip of his glans showing blood red above the translucent fold of flesh. 

Just the sight of it made Methos’ mouth water in anticipation. Mac was beautiful in his desire, a purple-veined archetype of male sexuality. Three-thousand years ago, the primitive people Methos terrorized would have considered a man of MacLeod’s perfect physical beauty a god. Methos, who’d lived among them, wasn’t nearly as inured to the superstitious response as he’d like to be. Seeing MacLeod like this, with his pants down around his knees, his shirts pushed aside, and his manhood rising in all its splendor made him tremble with more than longing. 

Beauty this exquisite could not be held onto. Throughout history Methos had watched men struggle to own this type of perfection for their own, and without exception, it always slipped through their fingers. Methos had played that fool’s game a time or two himself. Yet, here he was again, wearing his heart on his sleeve, on his knees before something so incredible that he could never hope to keep it. And he wanted to keep it. They hadn’t even made love yet, and Methos already knew it would kill him to lose this.

But lose it, he would. That was the law of the universe. Nothing was forever, except his life – and even that could be taken from him if he weren’t smart. So, he’d seize this moment and hold it to his heart, like he did all the other fleeting instances of solace.

“What is it?”

The gruff voice brought Methos’ gaze upwards. His face lined with need, Mac still managed to look concerned about him.

“Nothing,” Methos denied.

“Methos….”

Recalling his resolve to be honest with Mac, he reluctantly admitted, “I was just…contemplating the transitory nature of true joy, MacLeod.”

With anyone else, Methos would have had to go into a long explanation, but this man had lost so much in his short lifetime that he seemed to instantly grasp the oldest Immortal’s meaning, even if he didn’t fully understand the cause of Methos’ mood. Mac’s right hand left his shoulder to stroke across Methos’ short hair. 

Filled with understanding, those brown eyes were gentle, like his touch. Mac didn’t offer him any meaningless platitudes, didn’t attempt to tell him everything would be all right when they both knew it never would. Instead, MacLeod offered him the only comfort any of their kind could give. 

“ _Carpe diem_ , my friend,” Mac counseled.

He tried for a smile, knew it came out as no more than an upwards twist of the corners of his mouth. Needing the contact, Methos’ head sagged forward, his brow coming to rest against the thick muscles of MacLeod’s abdominal wall, his impressive proboscis squashing against Mac’s rock hard penis.

It was only his companion’s gasp that made Methos realize what he’d done. Abruptly recognizing where he was, Methos took Mac’s advice and seized the moment. He rubbed his cheek restlessly across that hungry shaft. Mac’s resultant sob ran right through him. Back and forth his cheek stroked, like a cat marking its territory - only, it was Methos himself who was marked.

When he raised his face at last, both his cheeks were dotted with Mac’s precum and sweat. He smelt like MacLeod, the same way he used to carry Kronos’ musk on his skin. 

Without delay, he opened his mouth and sucked Mac in. Taste supplanted smell then, and Methos’ entire reality was rocked by the experience. The salty flesh surged in his mouth, blossoming to its full size. 

Lost in the heady flavors, Methos licked and sucked the hungry flesh. He knew how to do this, excelled at it, in fact. Many a night in Kronos’ tent, his mouth had kept him alive when his wits had failed him. But even knowing his expertise in this area, Methos was nervous. Though the consequences of failing to please wouldn’t be the same here as they had in the leader of the Horsemen’s bed, the pressure to please was somehow greater. Methos needed MacLeod to like this more than he needed his next breath.

Opening up wide, shielding his teeth as best he could, he offered himself totally to the other man, deep-throating that thick cock with an eagerness Methos couldn’t ever recall bringing to this particular act. So often in his past, this had been used as a symbol of his submission, but not here. He’d never felt so free…or so desperate. He didn’t just want Mac to like this; he wanted the younger man to love it, to need it so much that Mac wouldn’t be able to live without it.

From the grunts and gasps coming from up above, it was clear he was succeeding. MacLeod’s hips were thrusting in rhythm with Methos’ bobbing mouth, the hands on Methos’ shoulders trusting so much of Mac’s weight to the kneeling man that it nearly unbalanced Methos. But he held strong, keeping them both up. 

The fragrant sacs that his chin hit on every downward plunge tightened up. Seconds later, Mac gave a loud groan and the back of Methos’ throat was sprayed with the thick, ascorbic by-product of MacLeod’s passion. 

Methos swallowed it down, a part of him still stunned that Mac was coming in his mouth, that they were finally sharing this. He kept working MacLeod’s cock until the Scot had nothing left to give and the penis shriveled down to its normal size. Only when he was sure that every last drop had been drained dry did Methos release his prize.

Though the room could hardly be said to be quiet following MacLeod’s climax, not with his companion’s labored breathing sounding so loud, there was a quality to the feel of the room immediately after Methos pulled back from his partner’s body that suggested shocked silence. 

Funny, the first time he’d done this for Kronos, Methos had experienced no trouble raising his eyes to meet his new master’s stare. Though his submission had left him little more than a slave then, Methos had been almost smug in the knowledge of how well he’d pleased.

But Duncan MacLeod was not Kronos. The Highlander’s ego didn’t need that kind of bolstering. If all of this were a result of the Quickening Mac had taken earlier -- which more and more seemed the only plausible explanation -- sex would only complicate the issue.

Still, although the man who’d been Death might be many things these days, few of them good, an emotional coward was not one of them. Bracing himself, Methos raised his gaze from that attractive, if flaccid cock, and searched out his friend’s eyes. 

Mac’s eyelids were still closed, his lashes a thick, dark fan against his skin. His lips were parted, an expression of utter astonishment softening his entire face.

Methos’ stomach lurched as those lashes fluttered, then opened to reveal Mac’s eyes. They were…glowing was the only description Methos could put to them as they met his own uncertain gaze. He’d never felt so vulnerable in his entire life, so naked, as he did at that moment he knelt there awaiting Mac’s judgment.

Something of his anxiety must have penetrated MacLeod’s post-coital haze, for the handsome brow puckered in confusion.

“Methos,” Mac whispered.

The moment seeming strangely significant; MacLeod bent down, took Methos by the elbows and gently raised him to his feet, till they stood as equals, eye to eye. Then MacLeod pulled him forward into a bear hug, unselfconsciously pressing his naked front against Methos’ black jeans.

The kiss fed Methos’ very soul. It was passionate, yet gentle…and filled with more caring than Methos had felt in five millennia. 

Mac’s hands seemed fascinated with the skin of his bare back. The palms kept circling, stroking, learning every inch by feel. Methos settled his own hands on the silk shirt covering Mac’s broad back and performed his own tactile reconnaissance, his vulnerability finding reassurance in touch. Mac was so solid, so real, so incredibly gentle that Methos’ fears didn’t stand a chance against those tender touches.

MacLeod’s technique was flawless. Without breaking the kiss or lifting his head to check their position, Mac shuffled them towards the bed behind them. No small accomplishment, that, considering the man’s pants were still bunched down around his knees.

Methos expected to be tumbled over backwards, with his warm, muscular blanket following him down, but while his mouth kept Methos occupied, MacLeod’s hands gripped Methos’ sides, guiding him into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, careful of him, in a way so few lovers had been. It was clear MacLeod was very conscious of his greater bulk, perhaps not to the same degree that Mac might have been were he with a woman, but enough so to be noticeable. 

Methos wasn’t sure how he felt about the kid gloves treatment. His pride balked at the very idea, but the part of him that had served Kronos’ sadistic whimsies for so many centuries gloried in the kindness. So, he kept his mouth shut and waited to see what MacLeod would do next. 

It was easy to see that they were both totally out of their depths here. Mac for the obvious reason that this was his first time with another man. Himself…were this a one-night stand with a non-violent stranger, Methos would have known how to behave, but the fact that this was Duncan MacLeod touching him put a meaning and significance to every instant that Methos simply didn’t know how to take in stride. So, he waited, barely able to breathe under the force of his desire.

The front of his jeans had long since passed constricted and was now working its way into the agony zone. The pulse of need that started in that strangled organ throbbed through his entire body, thundering through his ears, shaking his frame so badly that his lungs could barely expand. He needed this man more than he needed breath, more than he needed life itself. It was a humbling state, he recognized, but his utter dependency on MacLeod at this moment made it impossible to refute or deny.

And, at last, Methos understood his fear. In the past, Kronos might have been his master, but Methos had always maintained dominion over his own mind and soul. No matter what Kronos did to him physically, the leader of the Horsemen could never touch Methos inside. But without lifting his hand or sword, Duncan MacLeod could destroy him here tonight, could wound him in ways that Methos would never recover from. This man knew what he was, was still willing to bed him, still thought him worthy of gentleness…if Methos were rejected after this, he honestly didn’t know if he’d survive with his sanity intact.

Finally MacLeod withdrew from the kiss. Appearing delightfully flushed and breathless, the Highlander asked, “Lie back?”

As if unable to stop himself from touching, the forefinger of MacLeod’s right hand traced gentle circles around Methos’ nipple and Methos loosed a groan like his internal organs were being wrenched out. The already erect bud of flesh pulled up even tighter as the sensations engendered by that negligent touch ran rampant through Methos’ body.

Beyond speech, he lay back as instructed, watching wide-eyed as MacLeod shouldered his way out of the burgundy shirt, pulled off the dark tee shirt, then skimmed off his pants, briefs, boots and socks without any trace of self-consciousness or hesitation.

Methos eyed the naked man who sat on the bed beside him. Mac’s bare chest was a work of art. The body hair was thick in the center, spiraling out in sparser waves over his breasts, then arrowing down the middle of his stomach in a clean line. Methos was already familiar with the thick patch of pubic hair and the jewels below from their prior contact, but viewing the area in all of Mac’s naked splendor put a new spin on it. Methos realized that the adjective perfect was becoming trite in relation to MacLeod, but it was the only word that did the man justice.

Methos drew in a ragged breath as MacLeod finished with his disrobing and returned his full attention to him.

The calloused, rough skin of Mac’s sword hand stroked over Methos’ chest, making him shake so hard that Methos couldn’t help but wonder if his companion could feel the bed trembling. He hoped not. He already felt at too much of a disadvantage here. Mac pretty much knew that he’d trade his soul to sleep with him now, but Methos himself still hadn’t a clue as to why the other man was indulging him.

“You’re so smooth,” Mac proclaimed in a brogue so thick that it was only Methos’ time spent in ancient Wales that enabled him to untangle the meaning of the words at all.

Smooth wasn’t necessarily a good thing, Methos realized, remembering all too well how disappointed Kronos had always been in his strategist’s under-developed chest. And Kronos had been used to bedding men. What would this man, who’d sampled the most stunningly beautiful women of the past four centuries, think of the skinny body offered to him? Though he’d joked about it with Alexa the first time he was alone with her, Methos knew that he didn’t even have the face to make up for his other short-comings, not with his nose. 

But Mac didn’t seem displeased with his body. There was no disappointed, telltale straying of Mac’s gaze. The Highlander’s attention stayed focused and interested. Methos was clear enough to read the open appreciation in his companion’s eyes and touch. 

As that heated gaze all but devoured his naked chest, Methos heard Mac ask, “What happens next?”

“Mmmm?” Methos tried for coherency.

“When you’d get to this point in your fantasies,” Mac explained, moving to rest beside him on the bed, facing Methos. “What did we do?”

Methos blushed, but was unable to refute the suggestion. He knew he hadn’t left any doubts as to his own interest, but once again, Mac was way off base with his justifiable assumption. While it was true that he’d longed for this with all his heart and dreamed of it…the realist in him would never allow him to hope those dreams would be fulfilled. He didn’t know what it said about his psyche, but rarely was he happy, even in his fantasies.

“Methos?” Mac prodded, obviously hoping for some kind of instruction. Methos knew he himself would be at this point, were this his first encounter with another male.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Mac,” Methos whispered.

“What?”

“It never gets this far.” When he saw Mac’s face scrunch up in confusion, he realized he was going to have to explain. Feeling almost timid, he offered, “Before Cassandra came back, the fantasies would fall apart when I’d tell you about my time with the Horsemen….”

“You used to fantasize about telling me that?” MacLeod interrupted, visibly stunned.

Methos nodded. “I…wanted someone who…knew me for what I am, no roles, no lies.”

“And after you told me the truth?” Mac asked.

Methos licked his suddenly dry lips. “There was never any daydreaming afterwards, only mourning. After Bordeaux, I figured it was only a matter of time before you’d come for my head.”

Methos held his breath, waiting for everything to fall apart, as he knew it must, but it wasn’t anger which darkened MacLeod’s eyes. Remarkably enough, it was pain…and perhaps guilt.

The fingers that reached for Methos’ face were gentle as they stroked him…and Methos was so overwhelmed by that kindness that it broke something inside of him. He literally felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as his guts constricted in a tight knot. He was so twisted up inside that he could hardly swallow.

He heard Mac gulp, then the Highlander stunned him by saying, “I guess we’ll just have to make our own fantasies, then. What do you want?”

It was three swallows before Methos even attempted speech. 

“More than anything?” Methos checked, trying to ignore the finger that was trailing down his neck.

Mac nodded, his expression mild…Methos would almost say loving, were it anyone but himself here with Mac.

Methos thought for a moment, then answered. “May I let your hair loose?”

MacLeod actually blinked at his response. “That’s it?”

“That’s all I’ll ask for. Anything else is up to you,” Methos explained.

Shifting until he was propped up on his left elbow, Mac took hold of Methos’ hands and led them to the back of his head, where the long hair was tied back.

Working blind, Methos carefully undid the tie that held the thick locks in place.

“Why that?” Mac asked into the breathy closeness, visibly perplexed by Methos’ request.

“Aside from the fact that I really want to touch it?” at Mac’s nod, he continued, “You only wear it loose when you’re happy. I want to see you happy.”

With a final twist the elastic tie came loose from the metal clasp that bound it and Mac’s hair cascaded free around both their faces in a fragrant fall of silk. Methos’ fingers sank into the lush depths, carding the warm weight, sifting it through his fingers.

Though Mac’s hair was without doubt one of his most beautiful features, Methos had often wondered why a warrior as experienced as MacLeod would continue to sport such a vulnerable target in an age where long hair was no longer in vogue, but as he let the uplifted hair slowly feather down to land against Mac’s neck, he had his answer. Visibly shivering under the rain of soft locks, MacLeod’s eyes sank closed, his mouth parting as he savored the sensation. Obviously, it was a major turn-on for Mac to have his hair played with.

Methos indulged them both for the longest time, sifting through that wonderful length until he was sure he knew every separate root from its neighbor, getting more and more excited with every passing second.

It was MacLeod who finally called a halt to the hair playing. The Highlander changed the entire mood of the encounter again by sinking down onto Methos’ mouth for another juicy kiss. When Mac finally pulled back, Methos could barely see straight, let alone think.

He moaned as Mac’s hands traveled down his chest, stopping at the waistband of his jeans.

“Can we get rid of these?” Mac asked, still sounding as though he expected to be denied.

Methos gave the same nod he would have offered MacLeod if the Highlander had asked if it would be all right to peel his epidermis off. Then Mac was fidgeting with the button of his jeans, carefully undoing the zipper, peeling the jeans open…and Methos’ erection was finally free. It popped up out of the placket of his boxers as soon as the jeans were eased from his hips. Mac grabbed the top of the boxers and gave a determined tug, and pants and underwear were peeled away in a single adroit move.

Methos groaned at the freedom, sobbing as he realized that MacLeod was frozen above him now, just staring down at his gonads as though the Highlander were shocked to discover he had them. Methos wondered what he must look like to Mac. Neither of them were circumcised, so they looked pretty much the same on that front. Methos was paler down there and a couple of inches longer, but Mac was meatier. They were well matched, Methos thought, his pink flesh complimenting Mac’s darker shaft almost perfectly.

“Reality time?” Methos managed to grate out at last when no action seemed to be forthcoming.

Mac started, as if startled out of a daze. “What?”

“You knew I was a man,” Methos reminded, then, seeing the absurdity of the whole thing, he lightened the mood by adding, “You did know I was a man -- didn’t you?”

It was the right approach. The birthing defensiveness left MacLeod’s features. He gave a small, somehow shy smile and admitted, “Aye, I knew you were a man. I just…didn’t know you were so beautiful.”

Tensing at what he knew must be a lie, Methos searched that handsome face, and encountered only amazed wonder, like Mac really did find him attractive, despite all expectations to the contrary. Methos didn’t allow himself to ponder as to why Mac would be doing this at all if he hadn’t expected to find him attractive.

He heard Mac gulp, sensed the worry that entered his friend, the way he might feel a cold draft sneaking into the room. “Methos, I never… I don’t know….”

His heart melting, Methos took hold of Mac’s sword-hand and guided it to his own abdomen, then wrapped the broad palm around his own swollen shaft – doing his very best not to come at that first touch. It was like being encased in fire. Mac’s hand was just so hot, the pressure already perfect.

“It’s not that different. I promise,” Methos assured. “Whatever you do, it will be perfect.”

To demonstrate his point, Methos moved their still joined hands up and down his shaft, gasping at the sensations that exploded through him. His eyes sank closed as he savored the feelings. The next thing he knew, Mac was kissing him, that rough-palmed hand moving of its own accord on his touch-starved member, his own hand following along for the ride.

In five-thousand years, Methos had been taken in every conceivable position, seduced and fucked by true artists in the arena of sexual intercourse, yet nothing had ever moved him as much as MacLeod’s stumbling attempt to please.

His body responded like Byron’s guitar had to its master’s touch. Every fumbling stroke Mac gave called forth the purest, most excruciatingly intense delight, transforming a bumbling handjob into an almost celestial symphony of pleasure. 

He’d wanted this man too long for it to last. Five strokes was all it took, then Methos’ reality exploded out of his cock in a burning gush of liquid relief. He felt it splatter their joined hands and his lower belly as he spiraled farther and farther out of himself in the web of sensation Mac had woven for him. He could have spent all of eternity soaring those peaks of ecstasy, but all too soon he returned to himself.

The kiss finally ended. Methos heard Mac take a deep breath and pull back from their embrace a bit. Wondering how far the retreat would go, Methos slowly opened his eyes…in time to catch MacLeod licking the spilled semen from the knuckle of his right hand. Caught by the carnal eroticism of the unexpected act, Methos just stared.

Finding himself under observation, Mac gave a wry lift of his eyebrow and finished the job, seemingly without shame. 

When he thought he could speak past the lump in his throat, Methos grated out, “How was it?”

“I think I’ll try it hot next time,” Mac smiled.

“Next time?” Methos echoed, that tightness inside unfurling as he relaxed under the warmth shining from Mac’s eyes. It might be just post-coital bliss, but Methos would take the good will while it lasted. 

“We’re both wrung out tonight,” MacLeod accurately observed, “but there’s sure to be a next time. Don’t you think?”

He’d offered this man his head as an act of contrition tonight. Surely, MacLeod couldn’t be as uncertain of his reception in his bed as he sounded. 

Before Methos could rally a reply, Mac stammered on with, “I know it wasn’t much in the way of technique, but it’s bound to get….”

This time it was Methos whose hand covered his partner’s mouth, muffling speech. “It was perfect, Mac. Never better.”

He pulled his palm back with a hiss as MacLeod gave his hand a mischievous lick. Despite the amusement in his eyes, Mac’s words were almost troubled as he observed, “You’ve got it bad; don’t you?”

With anyone else, it would have been an arrogant statement, perhaps even a conquest, but MacLeod seemed only concerned, like he was worried about Methos getting hurt here.

Having expected nothing but to be hurt, he held that gaze and acknowledged, “You’ve no idea, MacLeod.”

Mac gave a pensive nod and bit his lip.

Methos appreciated that the other man didn’t even attempt to lie to him.

After a long moment of mutual observation, Mac quietly offered, “It will be all right, Methos. I promise.”

He almost laughed in MacLeod’s face at the absurdity of the claim. He’d just done it with his best friend – his very straight best friend. Methos still had no clue as to why Mac had bedded him, pity and the post-Quickening rut were running neck and neck as contenders. He had no idea what this had meant to MacLeod, if anything beyond the relief of the moment. And, they hadn’t even begun to discuss where this fit in with MacLeod’s ongoing relationship with Amanda.

But there was MacLeod, assuring him that everything would be all right.

Those arms reached for him, and there was no denying their lure. Breathing in the musky, earthy scent of the other man, Methos pulled it deep into his lungs and tried to hold it there, as he settled his cheek on the warm fur of Mac’s chest and tried to hold on to the thought that everything would work out for them, that he’d somehow be able to hold onto this. Everything would be all right, Mac had said so, and Duncan MacLeod never lied.

The cynic in him sneered at the very concept. Everything would be all right…sure it would. His years with the Horsemen would be magically forgiven after a single blowjob. Mac’s entire sexual orientation would be turned around overnight. And the issue of Amanda would never, ever even come up between them in the future.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Mac sleepily complained, his hand rubbing Methos’ back in reassuring circles as he delivered a soft, long kiss to the crown of Methos’ head. “Trust me. It will work out all right.”

“Right,” Methos answered far too tersely. But Mac just kissed the top of his head again and cuddled him a little closer. Lulled by the gentle attention and the steady beat of MacLeod’s heart under his cheek, Methos found himself relaxing in spite of himself.

“It will, you know,” Mac whispered, sounding on the very verge of sleep.

“Be all right?” Methos checked, almost willing to believe any fairy tale when Mac held him like this.

“Mmmm…try to…” an enormous yawn interrupted MacLeod’s words, “…believe for me. ‘kay?”

He’d throw himself in a vat of acid if this man asked it of him to prove himself. Giving the response MacLeod needed to hear at the moment was no hardship. Methos would even do his best to believe in the lunacy, until his world came crashing down around him again, as it inevitably would. 

“All right,” he whispered back, kissing the soft body hair under his cheek, knowing from the slow beat of that chivalric heart that the hero in his little melodrama had fallen deep into Morpheus’ clutches.

And as the wonder of lying here all tangled up with MacLeod’s long limbs spread through him, Methos almost convinced himself that it could, in fact, be all right. While there on the verge of sleep himself he heard it, the unmistakable grunt of a pig flying by his window.

********************


	2. Drawing the Line

_DRAWING THE LINE_

It was the pounding of his head that finally woke him. Even the oldest of Immortals couldn’t consume half a bottle of scotch in a couple of hours without paying for it. Methos’ head felt like it would literally fall off if he lifted it too far from the pillow. His mouth tasted like something from the bottom of a neglected birdcage, while his stomach was too rebellious to even think about. It was a miracle he’d been able to function at all last night.

Last night…the memories came quick and fast: Byron’s death, the argument he and Mac had at the club, MacLeod following him home to sort things out between them… and, oh, how they’d sorted things out! The incredible night he’d spent in Mac’s arms made even this killer hangover bearable.

It was the first night in Methos didn’t know how long that he’d truly slept. No insomnia, no nightmares, no parade of victims, no cataloging his thousand regrets…just good, old-fashioned rest. 

As he got used to the throbbing in his head, Methos slowly became conscious of his surroundings or, to be more accurate, an absence of something that should have had him at the brink of panic the second he opened his eyes. All the months he’d spent bunking in at MacLeod’s over the last three years had never cured him of that initial flare of anxiety when upon waking he’d find the environment thrumming with the presence of another Immortal. This morning there was nothing but the usual silence of his flat.

The other side of the bed was, of course, empty when Methos pried his eyelids apart. _Alone again, naturally_. The truly pathetic part of his discovery was the fact that he was genuinely surprised by it. Sap of the century that he was, he’d honestly believed Mac would stick around – at least until daylight.

Methos reached over and lay his hand against the sheet on the other side of the bed. It was ice cold…long deserted. He stayed still, waiting for the hurt to hit, but there was just a big gaping hole inside him where the reaction should have been. 

Normally, the cynic in him would be chiding Methos about now for being such an utter dupe, but even that pessimistic taskmaster seemed shell-shocked by Mac’s abandonment. The last thing he remembered about last night was Mac promising him everything would be all right, but this empty bed was as far from all right as it was possible to get.

Methos knew that it wasn’t really surprising that Mac had bolted. The wonder was that MacLeod had stayed at all. Maybe if the night had gone down as Methos had tried to orchestrate it to go, if he’d persuaded MacLeod to purge his anger on his flesh, then maybe he would have understood Mac’s disappearing act, but…last night hadn’t been ugly and violent. Hesitant, perhaps a bit amateurish, but beautiful all the same. Mac had seemed to enjoy it just as much as he.

Of course, Mac had enjoyed it, he chastised his own stupidity. The Highlander had taken a Quickening last night.

What Methos had forgotten was how imperative the post-Quickening rut could be. The more powerful the Quickening, the more desperate the need. When your hormones were raging like a bull in heat, even one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse would probably begin to look good, especially if he were willing. Hell, there were times an Immortal would settle for a knot in a tree if it promised release. MacLeod couldn’t help it if his better sense had prevailed in the cold light of dawn. 

It was the only conclusion Methos had ever expected. He’d known better at the time. No man, not even Duncan MacLeod, could accept Death, could welcome a man who’d committed such atrocities into his bed. But the tenderness of last night had made Methos begin to believe that redemption was truly possible. He might just as well believe in the tooth fairy.

That frightening hollowness still numbing him, he looked away from the broken promises the empty bed beside him signified, and stared at the window. Between the slats of the blind, he could see another gray day pouring its rain down on the City of Lovers, just another typical winter day in Paris. For a while, he watched the rain bead on the glass. The drops chased each other down in silver rivulets that ran like tears.

He’d done enough crying last night. No more tears, no more self-pity. It was time to face facts, get up and get on with life.

Belatedly, he recalled his own promise to Joe. He had a funeral to go to.

And wasn’t that going to be fun? MacLeod and he staring at each other across a church, trying to pretend that everything was normal between them, that they hadn’t fallen asleep in each other’s arms…

The emptiness inside abruptly became a little wider, a little colder. 

There was nothing more bitter than disillusion. Last night he’d thought he’d played out his final charade, that he’d finally found someone he didn’t have to pretend with…and now he was going to have to hide deeper than he ever had, so deep that the real him might never surface again.

_Mac…._

Well, MacLeod had gotten any revenge he might have wanted. Methos doubted if the younger Immortal would ever appreciate how lethal a blow he’d dealt. Everything tightening up inside him, Methos gulped and turned away from the window.

A flash of silver by the bottom of the bed caught his eye. 

Confused, Methos stared at his sword. It was in the wrong place. He always kept it close at hand, right here at the top of the bed, so he could reach for it while half asleep. But last night his sword had never made it into the bedroom. He’d left it propped against the sink in the kitchen. How…?

Mac must have brought it in before he’d gone, Methos realized, remembering that MacLeod’s katana had also spent the night in the kitchen. Bright, that. Any more distracted and they’d be featured in a Washington Irving story. Well, it wasn’t as though it were likely to happen again, Methos reflected. 

He tried to find some comfort in the fact that MacLeod had cared enough about his safety to move the sword so he’d be able to protect himself, but Mac was such a boy scout that the action could have been automatic, a courtesy the white knight would accord any stranger and therefore meaningless.

Unlike last night when Mac had held him and kissed him and….

But that had obviously only had meaning to one of them.

Methos squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he was wrong to want that hollowness to disappear. He had a feeling that what was waiting for him with MacLeod would make the debacle with Byron over the ending of their affair 177 years ago seem like kids stuff. Though, to be accurate, they could hardly call what had passed between them last night an affair. It barely qualified as a one-night stand. Whatever it was, it was over now, waiting to take its place in line behind Methos’ thousand other regrets.

Methos contemplated moving, but between Mac’s desertion and his raging hangover, there really didn’t seem much to get up for…except another funeral. He wished he’d never made that promise to Joe. Obviously, it was long past time for him to be moving on. For a second, he considered just packing his bags and clearing out, but Joe had asked him to come. While Dawson mightn’t be especially surprised if Methos pulled a no-show at Mike’s memorial service and disappeared again, Methos himself was determined to play this hand out. He’d be there for Joe today, stick around to see if his presence was needed by Dawson during the next few weeks, then maybe go back to Katmandu for a few years. 

As plans went, it wasn’t one of his best, but it was all he had. Whatever might transpire with MacLeod today, Methos was determined not to let Dawson down. He owed Joe that much for his silence. 

Very aware of the fact that if he didn’t get up now, he might never move again, Methos spurred his sluggish body to action. Motion was fully as agonizing as he’d anticipated. The second he sat up, his stomach lurched, threatening to disgorge its contents all over the bed, if his pulverized brains didn’t drip out of his ears and hit the sheets first.

A deep breath sent the bitter, salty rush of bile back down where it belonged. A shower and some dry toast might help it stay there, but he didn’t have much hope. He might make it through the funeral, but Methos knew himself well enough to have no illusions. He’d be right back at that bottle, sucking down its false comfort, just as soon as he was freed of his obligation to Dawson.

Well, the sooner he got moving, the sooner he could make a start at drowning his sorrows. 

Methos had just swung his legs over the side of the bed when the rattle of his front door opening and the buzz of another Immortal hit him. He was instinctively reaching for his weapon before he even had time to think, but froze as recognition of the signature penetrated. MacLeod….

Sure enough, his wide-eyed gaze settled upon Mac’s muscular frame. It was the Highlander’s right shoulder that entered first, followed by the rest of him, as the dark-coated MacLeod dragged no less than eight bulging white plastic bags in the door. Mac’s coat was stained from the rain around his shoulders. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, raindrops still beading his hair.

MacLeod moved far enough in to allow the door to slam shut behind him, dumped his burden immediately onto the floor and removed his coat in a rush of activity that left the hungover Methos’ head spinning just to watch. 

A sheepish smile quirked Mac’s face as he turned around and found himself under observation. “Good morning.”

The greeting was completely normal, completely Mac.

“You…came back,” Methos stammered, too stunned to hide his shock. Realizing what he must sound like, he instantly snapped his mouth shut.

“Huh?” Bright boy that he was, MacLeod appeared to instantly pick up on the atmosphere of the room. The smile slipped from the handsome features as they scoured Methos’ face. “I told you I’d be right back.”

“Told me?” Methos echoed, making no assumptions. “Was I awake?”

With this hangover, nothing would surprise him. Though, he found it difficult to believe that he could have gone back to sleep after the novelty of waking up to find MacLeod sharing his bed. Even the mere sight of Mac seemed to have astronomically lessened the pounding in his head.

“In my note. I left it….” MacLeod’s eyes moved from the empty pillow at Methos’ side to the floor. Mac had had no way of knowing that the draft that came under Methos’ front door was enough to lift a man off his feet at times, let alone an unmoored piece of paper. Regret immediately replaced the Highlander’s open confusion. “It’s next to that iron sphere over there. You thought….”

“The obvious,” Methos admitted, holding Mac’s gaze.

Now that he took a proper look at MacLeod, he could see that his friend was still wearing the clothes he’d had on last night. They were wrinkled and nowhere up to MacLeod’s usual sartorial standards. Wherever Mac had gone, it wasn’t home.

“I’m sorry,” Mac apologized, moving to the bed. He hovered there at its side for a long moment before sinking down to sit beside Methos’ knee.

Last night was suddenly real between them again, with all its inevitable tensions. He could tell that MacLeod was having trouble figuring out how to look at him right now. Deciding to deal with inconsequentials first, Methos asked, “You went?”

He didn’t really care where Mac had gone. All that was important was that he’d kept his word and returned.

“To the grocery store. The only thing you have in your refrigerator is beer.”

“Ah,” Methos replied, for want of something intelligent to say.

“You hungry?” MacLeod asked, visibly groping to keep the lines of communication open between them.

“Queasy, actually,” Methos admitted.

“Little wonder. We were really packing it down last night.”

Methos held his breath, waiting for the ‘God, were we drunk’ patter that would dismiss their encounter as no more than a drunken excess. After five-thousand years, he’d seen and heard it all. 

MacLeod asked “What?” just about the time Methos’ ears began to ring from oxygen deprivation and that bitter bile was making another rush for his throat. 

He took a deep breath and swallowed down the nasty stuff yet again. Almost irritated by MacLeod’s failure to blow him off, Methos challenged, “No excusing last night to drink? Or are we playing it like it never happened at all?”

Those were the two smartest strategies. Methos could deal with either – in public. It would be hard when it was just the two of them alone together…providing Mac ever wanted to be alone with him again.

“It happened,” Mac instantly answered. “And we weren’t that drunk. At least, I wasn’t. You looking for an out here?”

Mac actually appeared worried.

Unwilling to trust his voice, Methos shook his head. 

Mac nodded his understanding, then abruptly broke eye contact. After a minute, he softly said, “It shouldn’t be this hard.”

MacLeod looked so lost sitting on the edge of the bed that it made his heart ache. Methos wanted to reach out, to just touch him and tell this incredible man that everything would be all right, but five millennia’s worth of living put a lie to that fantasy. The stakes had more than doubled last night. What they’d done had complicated their problems, not diminished them.

So, as ever when uncertain, Methos did nothing. He sat and waited, to see what MacLeod wanted to make of their tryst, to see if their friendship had even survived, to….

Methos blinked as he noticed something he’d overlooked earlier. Mac was wearing his hair down….

Mac only let his hair loose like that when he was happy, when he knew there weren’t going to be any immediate challenges, when he wanted to look hot…he was wearing his hair down because Methos had asked it of him, which meant….

He knew he was probably reading too much into this. He’d taken Mac’s hair-tie out himself, so it was probably lost somewhere in the bed, but if that were the case, Mac could have braided it to hold it back. The fact that Mac had left his hair the way Methos had said he’d liked it had to mean something. If nothing else, it did mean that that he had no right inflicting this kind of tension on his friend. 

Mac was new to sex between men. It was only natural that he’d be nervous. Methos knew that it was up to himself to smooth this over, only….

Five-thousand years of conditioning was a lot to overcome. It wasn’t in his nature to take chances, to initiate relationships. He’d even had trouble approaching Alexa, making a start when he knew how it would end. 

And with Mac…Methos hadn’t a clue where this would lead them. To one of them taking the other’s Quickening, more likely as not. The roadblocks in this relationship seemed insurmountable. They were both Immortal, both male. Mac had never shown any inclination towards blazing this kind of trail before, so when the novelty wore off or things got too complicated, there was no telling how the Highlander would jump. And beyond that, there was Methos’ own baggage. That damned past that he had dragged behind him like Marley’s chains for three millennia now. Every moment his history with the Horsemen lay between them like a rotting corpse and MacLeod’s puritanical ethics were nearly as daunting. 

Logically, this hadn’t a chance of working. They shouldn’t even try, and yet…Mac’s misery drew him like loadstone to magnet. He was as lost as MacLeod here, as utterly clueless. He knew the score and knew they should just cut their losses and make a clean break, but….

But his hand was acting independently of his will, following his heart instead of his better sense. He laid it on Mac’s nearby arm and waited to see what would happen.

What happened was that it drew Mac’s gaze back to him.

For an instant they simply stared at each other, then Methos’ free hand reached out to touch as well and he found himself dragging MacLeod into his arms, embracing him the way he’d ached to hold Mac every time he wore that wounded look. Not that it took that much to compel the Highlander. He barely had to tug on Mac’s shirt. The invitation alone seemed all that Mac needed.

Wonderful as it was to hold him, after months of verbal sparring and all the hard feelings between them, it still felt strange to cuddle MacLeod close to him in the cold light of day. He could feel Mac trying to get used to the idea as well. But the other man didn’t pull away. 

Taking comfort from that fact, Methos squeezed his eyes shut, buried his face in the crook of MacLeod’s powerful neck and just held on…for dear life. 

Mac hugged him back for what felt like forever, gifting Methos with a type of intimacy he was almost completely unfamiliar with, at least from another man. He’d despaired of ever earning this kind of affection from Mac again. His hungry heart soaked it up like a dried-out sponge would water, trying to saturate every pore with the feeling, because experience kept insisting that it couldn’t last.

Methos was the one who finally lifted his head and broke the moment. He moved only far enough back for their eyes to meet. 

That was all the inducement their mouths needed. 

Mac had apparently found his sea legs when it came to seducing another man. He moved in on Methos with typical MacLeod determination, bearing the older Immortal back onto the mattress in a breathtaking burst of passion.

More than three millennia had passed since Methos had felt the type of emotions this man aroused in him. During that time, he’d been with many men, been taken by most, usually by choice, occasionally by force, but through it all, there had been this blank spot inside where the fire used to be. It was almost as if what he’d done with the Horsemen had burned him out, left him incapable of feeling things too deeply. Every now and then, he’d get attached to a mortal lover, just enough to get his heart ripped out when they died, but even with Alexa, whom he had adored, he’d never let himself go, never let himself feel all the way and be totally in the moment, the way Byron used to prattle on about. It had always irked the poet that he couldn’t inspire that degree of passion from him, that Methos had always held part of himself back. But, despite his best attempts at self-protection, there was no holding back with MacLeod. This man owned him, in ways that others who’d had true title to his person never had. 

Methos could only marvel at his companion. Mac’s courage aside, with the way his mouth tasted, he wouldn’t want to kiss himself, but MacLeod was sucking the juices out of him like they were the sweetest of wines. Mac tasted fully as good as he had last night, perhaps even better since there was no scotch masking his flavor this morning. 

As his tongue explored every slick surface of the Highlander’s teeth, Methos realized that the other man must have borrowed his toothbrush. Normally, the idea of someone taking such liberties with such a personal item would have made him gag, but this morning it struck Methos as just another intimacy they could share. 

His body ignited like kindling under MacLeod’s blanketing heat. His own mouth was kneading against Mac’s with a frenetic need that left him literally breathless. 

He sobbed in frustration as MacLeod struggled free from their lip-lock. It seemed to be a total retreat, for Mac’s hands abandoned him too, but when Methos opened his eyes it was to find that the other man had only pulled far enough back to jerk open his jeans. MacLeod’s cock popped up, hard and hungry, glistening like a cherry ice pop.

His stunned gaze noted how Mac’s hands were quivering, like he were strung out with need. 

Once he’d dealt with the pants, MacLeod shifted around a bit, grabbed hold of the covers and hauled them down from between them. And then Methos was quivering all over himself as their hot groins met for the first time. Rock-hard flesh nudged rock-hard flesh as Mac carefully settled back down on top of him, all two-hundred pounds of him. The strength and power MacLeod was holding in check was a vibrant, physical presence.

At first, Methos worried that MacLeod might be put off by how male he was, but his erection didn’t seem to cramp Mac’s style at all. As soon as they were safely snuggled down below, Mac’s mouth reclaimed his with a vengeance.

Though perhaps a novice to gay sex, MacLeod was no stranger to the art of seduction. Once they were comfortable, those slender hips started a totally devastating rocking. Gasping under the onslaught of sensation, Methos’ hands scrambled over the silk covering Mac’s broad back, groping lower. He slid his hands beneath Mac’s jeans and found what he was looking for by feel. The round, plush globes fit his palms as if constructed for them. 

Methos held his hands still for a moment, waiting to see if Mac had any objections. This was sometimes questionable territory when dealing with another man. Simple touches could so often be misconstrued as proprietary statements. Mac was nothing if not macho. Methos could well have understood if this proud warrior were uncomfortable with having his bum touched when they were so new to each other and so much remained undiscussed between them – like what they were doing here and why. 

But Mac was apparently man enough to go with what felt good. The moment Methos gave those lush cheeks a tentative squeeze, Mac let out a low, pleased growl and the fervor of his kiss increased to manic proportions.

Methos used his hands to guide Mac’s thrusts, his own hips rising up to meet each humping move. 

Like so much in their relationship, they were good at this, in spite of themselves. It should have been awkward and bumbling. They should have been vying for dominance like any two male Immortals usually were when thrust together. Instead, the connection just flowed, the desire throbbing between them and magnifying, as though they had an actual organ connecting them. It was like when they were joined at Silas and Kronos’ Quickenings, but less painful. 

Methos’ very pores seemed to be trying to drink the other man in. And, from all indications, MacLeod was doing his level best to meld them together.

Methos couldn’t swear to it, but it really seemed as if they hadn’t come up for air once. 

Climax when it came was a piercing rush of pleasure, fierce and wrenching as what he felt for MacLeod. Who came first, Methos couldn’t tell. Their cocks seemed to simultaneously explode in a hot, sticky gush. He tore his mouth away from Mac’s and groaned, his own loud outcry swallowed by MacLeod’s bellow.

Afterwards, they clung to each other, gasping and sweating, barely able to breathe, let alone think.

When his senses returned, the first thing Methos was conscious of was the sound of the rain pelting the window. Now that he had Mac here in his arms, it didn’t seem such a desolate sound. In fact, if Mac were willing to cuddle him like this, he was willing to lie here and listen to it forever.

Indulging himself, Methos rubbed his companion’s broad back, delighting in the fact that MacLeod would allow him to touch him this way.

Mac didn’t seem in any hurry to disengage. He lay on top of Methos, just holding on, breathing directly into the skin at Methos’ neck, making the oldest Immortal shiver like a schoolgirl.

Finally, MacLeod loosed a long sigh and said, “We’re going to have to get moving soon. We don’t want to be late.”

“No, we don’t want to be late,” Methos echoed.

Still, neither of them stirred. 

Maybe fifteen minutes later, MacLeod groaned and sat up. “I’ve got to go back to the barge and change.”

Methos stared up at his friend. With his loose brown hair all askew, his lax genitals peeking out through his open pants and his shirts wrinkled beyond belief, the Highlander looked incredibly wanton, as though all his rigid morals had been fucked away. What was left was wild and pagan, totally carnal. Simply looking at the man made Methos’ cock twitch with an interest it had no right displaying when he was this hungover and sated.

Realizing that those dark eyes were just as intent upon him, Methos couldn’t help but wonder what Mac was thinking. Though he would do nothing to jeopardize it, Methos still had no clue why MacLeod was doing this with him.

Asking would be the height of stupidity. Methos had this superstitious dread that this divine gift would be snatched from him the instant he questioned it. So, he’d play the same game he had when he’d fallen for Lord Byron, live moment to moment, never knowing what rights he had, never knowing when he’d be discarded, certain of nothing, except that the sex would be good, when he got it. Hard as it was on his self-esteem, he could live that way, had for decades.

“Should we hook up at Joe’s and go to the service together?” Methos suggested, trying for casual. He hoped that he didn’t seem overeager. He was determined not to repeat old mistakes, to take nothing for granted. Byron had taught him the folly of trying to tie down the wind. 

Though MacLeod made no immediate response, Methos could tell that his words had thrown the other man.

When he spoke, Mac’s deep voice was uncharacteristically uncertain, “I thought…we might go together. While you’re in the shower, I could fix breakfast. We could stop by the barge before we get Joe. Unless you’d rather….”

“No, that’s fine,” Methos hastily agreed, cheered that Mac’s needs had been the same as his own. He didn’t need any apart time yet. While he knew that MacLeod was probably still riding the crests of post-coital bliss, Methos was willing to take the togetherness while he could get it.

There was an awkward moment, then Mac gave him a fast kiss that grew progressively more involved before the Highlander forced himself back, smiled, and left the bed. 

Barely knowing what to think, Methos watched the other man carefully tuck himself back into his pants.

The unconscious sensuality of the gesture did things to his libido that Methos didn’t want to dwell on. He was in way too deep here.

Methos waited until MacLeod had left the room to drag his purchases out into the kitchen before he left the bed.

********************

There was nothing sadder than the funeral service of a young mortal dead before his time, except perhaps the burial of the greatest poet the world would know in an unmarked grave. As Methos had sat through Mike Paladini’s memorial mass at St. Jude’s, he couldn’t help but think of his old friend lying MacLeod-only- knew-where in a shallow grave, Byron’s passing unnoted and, for the most part, unmourned.

Byron had deserved better than that, but, then, so had poor Mike. It was a tragic situation all around.

He stared at the somber faces surrounding the table. The entire funeral party was here at Maurice’s, all seven of them, sitting around a clumped group of tables, mostly ignoring their meals. Joe, MacLeod, and Dawson’s band, all come to mourn a boy they had barely known. 

Methos shifted in his chair and pulled his black jacket a little closer to him. The club was on the chill side tonight. He wished he’d been smart like MacLeod and worn a wool sweater. His white cotton Henley had next to no warmth to it, but fortunately his black corduroy pants were keeping the rest of him warm. 

“Mike didn’t have any family,” Joe said, gazing down into his Johnny Walker. He still had his crisp white button-down shirt on, but his tie was gone now and his black suit jacket was slung over the chair behind him. “He’d been bouncing around foster homes since he was eight. I called the contact number he’d given the passport office as his next of kin and…they thanked me for calling. When I told his foster mom that we’d hold the service till they could get here, she said that wouldn’t be necessary. Wouldn’t be necessary…can you believe that? What kind of life must he have had?”

“Looks like music was all he had,” Jerry, the shaggy brunette bass player in Joe’s band, remarked. Even he was wearing his Sunday best, which consisted of a pair of blue jeans with no holes, a clean black shirt and a navy suit jacket that looked like it had belonged to his grandfather.

“Yeah, and look where that got him.” Joe’s misery was a palpable entity.

“At least he had friends to care about him,” Methos offered, patting Joe’s back. 

“Yeah, right….” Dawson’s sarcasm came close to rivaling his own at times.

Their table fell quiet again. As the evening became progressively more somber, one by one, the band members rose, gave Joe a pat, bade their farewells and split, leaving only the two Immortals and Watcher in their island of grief among the club’s customers. 

Fortunately, it was a Tuesday night. There was no live music tonight, so the place wasn’t too loud. It was mostly a dinner crowd, and a small one at that, due to the deluge outside.

“You guys don’t need to babysit me. I’ll be all right,” Joe said some time later.

MacLeod and he exchanged a glance and stayed where they were.

“Who’s babysitting? We’re just drinking your liquor,” Methos answered.

“MacLeod’s liquor,” Dawson corrected. “Mac insisted on paying for everything.”

It was amazing how much communication could go on without words ever being spoken. The sheepish shrug Mac gave Methos spoke volumes. All teasing aside, the man really was the perfect Immortal. And stars knew, MacLeod certainly looked the part today. In his white cable knit, turtleneck sweater, black pants and black jacket, the Highlander could well have been a model straight off of the cover of GQ.

“I just wish….” Joe trailed off.

“Yes?” Mac prompted, his concern for their bereaved mortal friend written all over him. Joe was taking Mike’s death hard.

“There should be more than seven people at a man’s grave,” Joe explained, his bloodshot eyes owing to far more than the booze.

“Joe, some of us don’t even get one friend at our grave. Some of us are lucky if our opponent takes the time to bury us,” Methos pointed out. 

“Was that supposed to help?” Joe groused, giving him a sour look. 

Though hardly pleasant, Methos was glad to see it. The reaction showed a rallying of Joe’s spirits. A couple of hours ago, Dawson would have let the comment pass unchallenged.

“It’s just his brand of comfort,” Mac said, an affectionate glint in his eyes Methos hadn’t seen in over six months. “You remember that charming little anecdote he had about his friend and the Inquisition?”

Dawson snorted. “It wasn’t something I’m likely to forget.” Those red-ribboned, hazel eyes ran over Methos, who was closest to the mortal, before scouring MacLeod, who was seated at Methos’ other side. “Okay, what’s up?”

“Hmmm?” Methos questioned.

“You two haven’t sniped or growled at each other all day. It’s making me nervous. This good behavior isn’t on my behalf is it? What’s goin’ on with you two?” Joe asked with his usual endearing, upfront lack of tack.

Methos’ blood turned to ice at the question. He’d expected their closest friend to notice some difference in their attitudes as – if – their relationship progressed, but not on the very first day. Was what they’d done written all over them? Mac was going to freak over this.

To his shock, he felt the Highlander’s palm settle on his back. Almost panicked, he looked to MacLeod…whose visage was serious, but in no way alarmed.

Frozen in place, Methos heard Mac answer, “No, it’s not on your behalf. We just worked some problems out last night.”

“Yeah?” Joe sounded surprised.

Feeling Dawson’s gaze boring into the side of his face, Methos ripped his eyes from MacLeod’s calm features, gulped and affirmed, “Yes.”

He can’t know, Methos told himself. But there was something in Joe’s expression that seemed to indicate that he was aware that something was going on.

Mac’s palm remained on his back, a burning weight that both comforted and unnerved him.

This was another of the many issues Mac and he had yet to broach. In popular vernacular, it was called coming out these days. Coming out…Methos could well recall the days when there was no such thing as being in the closet.

The extreme changes in social mores that went on during the course of such an extended life was one of the hardest things to get used to about being an Immortal. Sexual preferences and relationships that were perfectly accepted and openly celebrated when he was young would have gotten Methos burned at a stake or imprisoned for life a mere century ago. While homosexuality was no longer a criminal offense in most civilized societies, it wasn’t always viewed as welcome news. Methos knew Dawson well enough to know that his friend was cool with people of alternate lifestyles, but being civil to strangers wasn’t exactly the same as having to deal with the issue on a personal level. After five-thousand years, Methos knew that it shouldn’t matter to him what one mortal thought, but Joe’s opinion and respect were important to him. Also, he had no clue how MacLeod was going to feel about outsiders knowing they were boffing.

“Well,” Joe said, “maybe something good came out of this, after all.”

“Definitely,” MacLeod agreed in such a contented tone that it drew Methos gaze back to his friend. When Mac noticed Methos looking at him, a small, shy smile touched his lips. 

That boyish bashfulness was lethal.

It was a ridiculous reaction at his age, but Mac’s swift response made him tingle all over like a smitten schoolboy.

The moment held, then passed. With a soft smile of his own unconsciously touching his lips, Methos returned his attention to Joe. He mightn’t have been aware of the smile, but Methos felt it slip away as he met Joe Dawson’s stare.

Methos expected Mac to pull back at that point, but to his surprise, the hand lingered on his back. 

He knew Joe had to be able to see what Mac was doing, but his new lover didn’t seem at all worried. Of course, Dawson was pretty absorbed with his grief at the moment, but Watchers were by nature an observant breed. If Mac kept that hand there much longer, Joe was bound to notice. MacLeod wasn’t really a toucher in public. Even with Amanda or Ritchie, who was like a son to the Highlander, MacLeod rarely hung onto them for any length of time. And he hardly ever touched Methos at all, certainly not since Bordeaux.

Sure enough, Joe’s bloodshot eyes followed Mac’s arm to Methos’ back, then jumped to MacLeod’s face and Methos’ immediately afterward. Dawson’s gray eyebrows quirked up. Even if they’d planned on keeping their budding relationship a secret, the cat was now officially out of the bag. 

Methos held his breath. He was intensely aware of MacLeod sitting so close beside him. Mac never missed a thing, that was how he’d survived this long. MacLeod had to know that Joe had sussed them out, yet the Highlander didn’t even tense.

To his shock Joe let out an earthy chuckle and shook his head. “Man, you are never boring. I’ll give you that, MacLeod.”

“Thank you, I think,” Mac answered.

Joe’s hazel eyes seemed to study them both for the longest time.

“We’re not an exhibit in a museum, you know,” Methos snapped at last, his nerves raw. 

Left to his own devices, he never would have told Joe this soon. When everything fell apart with MacLeod, which he knew would be sooner rather than later, Joe’s knowing would be just one more cross to bear. He remembered how hard it had been when Byron and Doc Polidori had had their falling out and broken up. Everybody he knew was aware of the laughing stock he’d become. Polidori’s suicide had been as much a release from the ridicule as an escape from Byron. 

Joe’s knowing scared him. He wasn’t ready to give up his Adam Pierson persona yet. But…Mac wasn’t Byron. Even if things did fall apart with MacLeod, they could never end up in any worse state than their relationship had been at after Bordeaux. Even then, MacLeod hadn’t intentionally made Methos a pariah. Methos knew that the problems he’d had with these two men were entirely of his own fault. So, if --when -- things did fall apart with MacLeod, providing he played it cool himself, chances were Methos would be able to keep Dawson’s friendship. With that thought in mind, he took a deep breath and tried to calm his jangled nerves.

“Sorry,” Dawson instantly offered.

“No, Joe, it’s my fault,” Methos quickly admitted, reminding himself that he was supposed to be comforting Joe tonight.

“It’s just…new and a surprise,” Mac said, drawing both their attention away from Methos’ unfortunate outburst.

“I’ll say,” Joe snorted, that incredulous expression back on his face again. “I just can’t get my brain around the idea.”

“Try it from this end,” Methos drolly suggested.

“Was that an invitation?” Dawson quipped, a totally evil light in his bloodshot eyes.

Realizing what he had, in fact, said, Methos’ head shot up.

Both his companions cracked up at whatever his expression was.

“Very funny,” Methos groused. “What would you do if I said yes?”

To his consternation, Dawson wasn’t thrown by Methos’ challenge. His eyes just got brighter, his cheeks redder as he laughed all the harder. 

“What’s so funny?” Methos demanded, totally peeved, irritated as much with himself as his laughing friends.

“I’ve watched MacLeod for more than thirty years now. You’d have to sell him on the idea first,” Joe explained.

“Oh…” Methos’ voice trailed off at the very thought of inviting the boy scout into any kind of a threesome. To his knowledge, even Amanda had never succeeded in broadening MacLeod’s sexual horizons when it came to the subject of multiple lovers.

Methos’ consternation only increased the hilarity.

But the laughter wasn’t at his expense. Mac’s hand patted his back, while Joe’s smile was completely devoid of malice.

“Seriously, though, this just isn’t something I ever expected from you two,” Joe said at last.

The mood changing fast, Mac asked in a serious tone, “Is this going to be a problem for you?”

Joe gave another snort. “You two growling at each other and acting like it’s gonna come to swords – that’s a problem for me. I got no problem with my friends playin’ nice…you are playin’ nice; aren’t ya?”

Methos could feel his cheeks warming at the gruff inquiry. One look at MacLeod showed him redder than his countryman Robert Burns’ red red rose.

Mac’s eyes met his, seeming to ask a silent question.

Methos wasn’t certain exactly what was being asked of him, but he looked down and gave an assenting nod of his head, leaving the ball in Mac’s court.

“Very nice,” Mac assured Joe, playing it cool and taking a sip of his drink.

“Good…I’m glad,” Dawson said.

The words seemed to be true. Methos searched his friend’s craggy face, but could find no hint that Joe was bullshitting them to spare their feelings. It startled him. Joe was happy his dearest friend had taken up with one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

“I’m also about to explode here,” Joe added. “’scuse me a minute.”

They watched Joe climb to his feet and make his slow way to the men’s room.

Once Dawson was out of earshot, Mac turned to Methos, leaned in close to him and quietly asked, “Did I make a wrong move letting Joe in on what’s going on between us? I only realized afterward that I should have checked with you first. I’m…not used to hiding this kind of thing.”

No lies, Methos reminded himself. Taking a deep breath, he admitted, “It just seemed…a little early, perhaps.”

Especially in light of the fact that they hadn’t even discussed what they were doing themselves.

MacLeod nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Methos said. “I’m not. I just….”

“Don’t think this is gonna last long enough for Joe to need to know?” Mac suggested.

Methos gulped. Joe wasn’t the only one who could be ruthlessly upfront. Deciding to do his best to follow suite, Methos answered, “I want it to. I just…we haven’t even talked about what _this_ is. I feel….”

“Yes?” Mac didn’t appear upset or threatened the way some men could get when the subject of their feelings came under discussion.

“I feel like I’m operating in the dark here. I don’t know what my role is or where you’ve drawn the lines.”

There, he’d said it. With Byron, that complaint would have been enough for Methos to be told that he hadn’t the right to so much as presume to ask the question; whereas with Kronos, punishment would have been swift and bloody. But with MacLeod….

The Scot’s face grew more serious, and beneath it, impossibly gentle. “I know we haven’t talked…that’s my fault. I’ve…never done this before. I’m a little out of my league here, but…you’re not playing any role with me. It’s just you and me, no games, no roles. And there aren’t any lines to be drawn. Okay?”

His heart twisted in his chest like someone’s fist was around it squeezing. Hating that this man could make him feel so much, Methos short-temperedly argued, “There are always lines, MacLeod.”

“No, there aren’t, not with us. You told me the first day we met that _su casa es mi casa_. Well, _mi corazon es su corazon. Comprende_?”

God help him, he wanted to run. This incredible man was just so true to his principles that it scared Methos spitless. He’d never met anyone with this kind of integrity, let alone loved anyone with it. He knew he couldn’t measure up to it himself, knew that he was bound to fail MacLeod’s impossible expectations. The idea of disappointing Mac again that way hurt worse than the thought of everything falling apart now, when it was so new and fragile. The survivor in Methos was telling him it was long past time to hit the road, but the part of him that kept him coming back to MacLeod wouldn’t allow him to run, not this time when he’d finally found someone who could live with his past.

Still, the pessimistic survivor wouldn’t allow him to accept this lunacy unchallenged. It was almost his moral duty to make MacLeod see how absurd this entire proposition was. Feeling cornered, Methos sarcastically demanded, “So on the strength of a single blowjob, you’re going to turn your entire world on end?”

If he’d hoped to press MacLeod’s buttons, he was bitterly disappointed. With that same devastating earnestness, Mac calmly answered, “No, on the strength of a three-year friendship with someone I trust with my life.”

That shut him up but good. If this had been a sparring session, he would have been on his knees with Mac’s katana at his throat. 

“Ahhhum….”

They both jumped as someone cleared their throat nearby. Joe stood beside the table, wearing an unmistakable ‘too much information’ expression on his weary features. But Joe Dawson was nothing, if not adaptable. He gave them both a wry grin and said, “Sounds like you guys have a lot to talk about. You want to drive me home?”

MacLeod’s well-worn guilt flashed across his face. “Joe, you don’t have to….”

“I’m tired,” Dawson said. “I want to go to bed. Seriously, guys, it’s been a long day.”

There was some truth in that. It had been nearly twelve hours since they’d picked Dawson up at his flat this morning. Even then, the mortal had looked like he’d had a hard night. Now, Joe was almost gray with exhaustion.

“Yes, it’s been a rough day all around,” Methos agreed.

“Joe….” MacLeod was still trying to beat that dead horse.

“Honestly, I’m really done in, guys,” Joe insisted.

“If you’re sure…?” Mac said.

“Positive,” Dawson answered.

Mac had that troubled look about his features again. Engaging as the brooding Heathcliff front could be, Methos often wished his friend would lighten up a bit. Too little beer, that was the Highlander’s problem. MacLeod didn’t know how to properly enjoy life, but, with a little luck, Methos was planning on teaching him.

After a minute of giving Dawson that worried look, MacLeod asked, “You’re not leaving because of…us -- are you, Joe?”

Methos almost crowed with victory. So, the perfect Immortal wasn’t as self-possessed as he let on. For all his outer composure, MacLeod really was as worried as Methos about Joe’s reaction to their news.

Regret flashed instantly across Dawson’s grizzled face. “’course not. I’m leavin’ ‘cause I’m about to fall flat on my face. You…you made me laugh tonight. I didn’t think that was possible. Now, will you please take me home…before I fall asleep on my feet here?”

Mac grinned and nodded.

“I’ll get our coats,” Methos offered, moving to the coat rack while Mac went to the bar to speak with Maurice and settle their account. 

Methos preempted any awkwardness at the car by climbing into the back seat of Mac’s black Citroen before Joe could even protest. The ride over to Dawson’s flat was quiet, but not uncomfortably so. The steady swipe of the windshield wipers filled the car. It was still raining, pouring, actually. The streetlights glistened off the downpour, giving every surface of the city a bright sheen. 

Mac pulled into an open spot in front of Joe’s building.

“Thanks for coming. It meant a lot to have you both there,” Joe said when the car came to a stop. Dawson just sat there for a long moment, as if too exhausted to brave the elements yet.

“You want some company?” MacLeod asked.

“Yes, why don’t we come up and….” Methos immediately seconded.

“Thanks, but all I wanta do is sleep. I appreciate the offer, though,” Joe answered, giving them both a tired smile.

“If you change your mind….” Mac said.

“I’ve got your numbers,” Dawson finished. A wicked smile creased his tired features as he added, “Whose number should I dial in case of emergency?”

It was clear that Joe was going to get a lot of mileage out of their altered relationship. The fact that Dawson could joke so easily about the whole thing was the clearest message the mortal could have sent that he was cool with the situation.

“911?” Methos quipped, then suggested, “Mac’s.” 

“Well…you two behave yourselves.” Joe’s cheeks colored a bit, “Play nice.”

“We’ll try,” Methos drolly replied.

“He’ll try,” Mac joked.

“Meaning that he plays nice all the time,” Methos helpfully translated. “But I’m working on making him a little less boring.”

Dawson snorted. “Boring is not an adjective that applies to either of you, my friends.” Joe paused, seemed to fish around in his head for the words for a moment, before saying, “Seriously, though…I’m glad for you. You both deserve some happiness.”

“Does that mean we have your blessing?” Methos was trying for light, but even he could hear how surprised and serious his voice sounded. Joe’s acceptance and support had thrown him completely.

“Yeah, for what it’s worth, you’ve got my blessing,” Joe answered.

“It’s worth a lot,” Mac instantly assured.

“Yes…thank you, Joe,” Methos said, still unable to believe that Dawson wasn’t counseling MacLeod to run as far and as fast from him as possible.

“No, thank you both…for today and for burying the hatchet. I don’t know that I’m up to anymore funerals just yet,” Joe admitted, looking and sounding all of his years. “Well, if I’m going up, I better get moving.”

“You sure you don’t want us to stay?” Methos checked, hating that this good man was alone so much of the time.

“Positive. Like I said, I need to sleep,” Joe answered, that mischievous glint back in his eyes.

It took a minute, but he finally realized what Joe was saying. Once again, both Mac and Dawson were chuckling at him.

“I didn’t used to be this slow. It must be the company I’m keeping,” Methos commented.

The Boy scout shocked him totally by adding in a mock-offended tone, “You said you liked it slow last night.”

“And, that, my friends, is my exit cue,” Joe laughed, shaking his head.

Seeing that Dawson had gathered his walking sticks in preparation to making an actual move, Methos said, “Here, let me get the door.”

Just stepping out into the freezing downpour long enough to get the passenger door open and trade places with Joe left him chilled to the bone. 

Though he still felt bad about leaving Dawson on his own, Joe had a smile on his tired face as he bid them goodnight and shuffled through the pouring rain over to the apartment door.

“He’s a good man,” Methos said as he slid into the passenger seat beside MacLeod. He could already see the water from his pants beading on the slick leather of the car seat. He reached down with his jacket to try to blot it up, but only succeeded in depositing more rain on the seat.

“The best,” Mac agreed. Seeming to notice what he was doing, the Highlander said, “Give it up. You need the heat on? Your lips are turning a charming shade of blue.”

Methos gave a grateful nod and luxuriated in the blast of warm air that hit him. It was his imagination, of course, but sometimes it seemed to Methos that he had spent at least half of his five-thousand years trying to dry off and get warm.

They waited until the apartment door had closed behind Joe before pulling out.

“The barge?” Mac asked.

“Yes. I’ve got clothes there…they are still there, aren’t they?” Methos belatedly checked, realizing only after he’d spoken that most people would have dumped his stuff into the Seine after he’d taken off with Kronos.

“They’re still there,” Mac replied, giving him an understanding glance before returning his attention to the traffic, which was unusually heavy tonight.

Methos swallowed hard. Mac had kept his stuff, even after the Highlander believed Methos had betrayed him. That said a lot about Mac’s feelings for him. It told Methos that, despite all the distrust between them, there had still been a part of MacLeod that had never given up on him.

The barge was clear on the other side of town, so it was a long drive. It seemed that no matter what time you tried them, Paris streets were as snarled with traffic as any other major metropolis these days. The action tonight was giving New York a run for its money. 

They were halfway to the barge when MacLeod softly questioned, “How are you holding up?”

“What?” Methos turned his attention from the Christmas tree-like montage of lights that was Paris at night to his companion. 

“Joe wasn’t the only one who lost a friend yesterday,” Mac explained, looking awkward. “I know you’re hurting.”

Methos shrugged, trying to minimize the issue. Byron had brought nothing but discord between them. He didn’t want to dwell on it. “Byron chose his own path. I urged him to leave Paris. He wouldn’t go.”

Mac’s eyes left the red Volkswagon they were following to give him a sharp glance. “You don’t have to…hide your pain from me. He was your friend. You have a right to mourn him.”

Methos swallowed hard. “I mourned his loss over 175 years ago.”

“What you said before, about having only an opponent at our graves…he’s decently buried,” Mac said, sounding troubled.

“I know.”

MacLeod never left his kills behind. Lord knew, if he did, Mac would have been in prison years ago with all the Quickenings he’d taken in the past few decades.

“I put him next to Alexa in Rebecca’s keep,” Mac said. “I hope that was all right.”

“You did what?” His blood was turning cold again, but not from fear this time.

“He was your friend. I couldn’t leave him in an unmarked grave,” MacLeod said. “Collier said he’d handle the stone.”

Collier was an Immortal who’d run a monument business for the last two centuries. Due to the nature of an Immortal’s death, such common traditions as wakes, funerals, burials, and memorials could become incredibly complex. There was just so much red tape involved with dying these days. 

“That’s why you were so late getting to Maurice’s last night? You took him out to Rebecca’s?” Methos questioned, still unable to believe MacLeod had done this for him – before they’d ever made love.

Mac nodded and answered, “Traffic was bad. Should I have put him somewhere else?”

MacLeod was obviously far more attuned to him than Methos had ever suspected; though he supposed his shock must have been fairly apparent.

Methos considered Mac’s question. He never would have thought of burying Byron anywhere near Alexa. It was almost an insult to her purity, but…it was touching that Mac had done this for him.

“No, Rebecca’s keep is fine,” Methos replied when he thought he could do so without choking up. He turned back towards the window, mostly to hide the moisture he could feel stinging his eyes.

The soft touch that landed on his left shoulder told him he wasn’t entirely successful. 

“I’m sorry what I did hurt you, Methos.”

“If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else, Mac. He’d been courting death as long as I’ve known him,” he said, stamping down hard on the pain.

“You don’t have to do that with me,” Mac said, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

“Do what?”

To Methos’ irritation, the Volkswagen in front of them came to a complete stop. As far as he could see up St. Germain-des-Pres, the street was a sea of red brake lights. The flashing lights of an emergency vehicle way up in the distance were not encouraging as far as immediate movement was concerned. He was going to be stuck here with MacLeod in concerned mode for a while.

“Pretend that it doesn’t hurt,” Mac answered, the soul of patience.

Methos was beginning to wish he had that judgmental avenger back. It was so much easier to deal with that MacLeod at times.

“What would you have me say, MacLeod?” Methos peevishly demanded.

“You could try talking about it,” Mac softly suggested.

“To what end?” Methos snapped.

“Huh?” Mac seemed totally confused by his question.

“What good could talking about the latest act in this tragic farce possibly do? Lord Byron is dead. Nothing I say is going to bring him back, and even if it could, nothing I say would make him or me any happier. It just is and has to be accepted.”

There was a long, hurt silence, then MacLeod said in that same subdued voice, “It might help me understand you a little better. When you close me out like this, I have no way of knowing if I’m making things better or worse for you.”

It was a familiar complaint. Even Alexa had voiced it in some form. 

Methos turned back to the man beside him, his movement making the black leather of the seat creak. For all intents and purposes, he and Mac were stuck in this traffic jam for the duration. That wounded expression MacLeod was sporting made Methos want to reach out and hold him, but he realized the inappropriateness of such an action here in public. Also, he suspected that Mac would prefer words. Venting a sigh, he said, “You make things better. It’s your nature.”

The sardonic flair he added to the words seemed to rub Mac the wrong way. “Methos….”

Willing to do anything to avoid another senseless argument, Methos quietly questioned, “All right, what do you want me to talk about?”

“If you’re going to be difficult….” Mac began in an affronted tone.

Methos cut him off. “I’m not being difficult, at least, not purposely so. The…scope of what you’re asking is daunting.”

“What?” Mac blinked. Seeming to give up the pretense of driving anywhere soon, MacLeod shifted his muscular form so that he was facing Methos in the confined space of the driver’s seat.

The car stalled in this unending traffic jam was a strangely intimate setting. The only sounds at the moment were the steady pound of rain on the vehicle, the rhythmic squeal of the windshield wipers, and the softer sounds of their breathing. With all the windows closed against the deluge pouring down, it felt like it was only the two of them alone in the world, as isolated as if they’d been stranded on a desert island together.

Seeing no way out of the discussion, Methos answered his companion’s question, “You asked me to talk about my pain. I’ve got five-thousand years of it behind me, Mac. I don’t close you out by intent. The only way I survive is by not thinking about the losses, not letting myself wallow. If I did….”

“Yes?” Mac gently prompted. Sean Byrnes would have been proud of his young friend. Mac sounded like a trained psychoanalyst at the moment.

“I’d be like Byron was or worse.”

“You could never be like him,” MacLeod almost spat out. 

Methos nearly laughed at the scandalized tone. Mac was acting like Byron’s star syndrome temper tantrums and his seducing mortals into life threatening situations were the worst things a man could do. Methos knew better. Byron was no saint, but the poet had never forced himself on an unwilling partner; Byron had never captured his victims or delighted in drinking their blood as he vivisected them. Every life Byron had claimed had been freely offered up to him.

“No? Think again,” Methos corrected. “I was him and worse.” 

Seeing that those dark eyes were merely listening, and not judging him for once, Methos cautiously offered, “Do you really want to know what makes me tick, MacLeod? Do you really want to know the things I’ve never spoken about? Have a care, my friend. None of it’s pretty,” Methos warned.

“I don’t care if it’s pleasant. I just…want to understand you,” MacLeod answered.

Reading the truth in those irritatingly earnest features, Methos glanced off at the unmoving line of cars before them, took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, but…remember you asked for it and you’ll have to tell me where to start. There’s…so much that I’ve seen….”

“How about starting at the beginning?” Mac asked. “The other night, you said you were no one’s son….”

Methos snorted. MacLeod was the most persistent creature he’d ever met. 

Realizing what he was going to have to address, Methos turned his eyes from MacLeod and stared out the windshield in front of him, fixing his gaze on the license plate of the Volkswagon, the numbers of which he could barely see through the rain-blurred windshield. 

Five-thousand years…and he still suffered night terrors over some of this stuff. Methos never allowed himself to remember those times, never dwelled on the particulars, but here he was, about to disgorge the whole sordid mess, simply because Duncan MacLeod asked it of him. Christ, but he had it bad.

Methos’ nervous gaze settled on the car in front of them. He couldn’t talk about these things while looking at someone, while seeing their reaction. He had to distance himself as best as he could, focus on some inanimate object until he felt as insensate as it was and then just start talking, relate the cold facts without putting any emotion behind them, for if he let himself feel….

Taking a deep breath, he began, “I was found on a caravan route in Mesopotamia as an infant. My foreign appearance brought a high price in the slave market.”

“You were a slave?” Mac sounded shocked.

Surely, the Highlander hadn’t thought the life of the Horsemen would appeal to pampered princelings? Ignoring the urge to give into his sarcasm, Methos answered the question at face value. “For my entire mortal life.”

Mac was silent for a long moment. “How bad was it?”

Methos was impressed with his friend. For a died-in-the-wool abolitionist, MacLeod still had enough objectivity in him to understand that all slave owners weren’t monsters, that there had been some masters who had valued the work their property had done for them. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been Methos’ lot in life, but he’d seen some owners who treated their people decently. They were few and far between, but they had existed.

In Mac’s voice he could read the hope that this had been his experience and was tempted to lie, but that would defeat the purpose of this exercise.

Drawing a deep breath, Methos met his friend’s eyes and confessed, “I always swore to myself that the only way you’d get this information was with my Quickening.”

Admittedly, the dashboard lights gave everyone a greenish cast at night, but Mac seemed especially so at the moment. “It was as bad as that?”

Methos bit his lip, and stared back at the numbers on the Volkswagen in front of them for a minute, then offered, “My foreign appearance ordained my fate from the start. I was raised in my master’s pleasure tent, suckled by one of his whores. I…saw things from an early age that no man should have to view, let alone a child. When I was five, I watched a group of my master’s soldiers gang rape the woman who’d nurtured me. They…beat her to death for sport…because she was no longer supple as a virgin. After more than five-thousand years, I still see that scene in my mind and dreams as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.”

“My God,” Mac gasped.

“God had nothing to do with anything that went on in that tent, MacLeod,” Methos said, even now outraged by what he’d seen and endured in a time before man had even learned to write. Deciding to give Mac everything he’d asked for, Methos pulled emotionally back as far as he could from the events he was detailing and continued in a calm tone, “At age eight I was sent to my master’s bed, where I learned everything there is to be known about sex serving him and his men. That first night, I was so young that he ripped me to pieces inside, but…wounds that would have killed a mortal child healed on me. Three, sometimes six men would visit me a night.” He couldn’t help but sneak a glance at MacLeod after confessing that, a masochistic part of him needing to see his friend’s revulsion and disgust, but…Mac disappointed him on that front. His lover wasn’t looking at him like he was dirt. To the contrary, there were tears clearly standing out in those dark eyes. Gulping his own reaction to the sympathy back, Methos gently offered, “I don’t have to talk about this. It’s not anything that has meaning anymore. That me died more than five-thousand years ago.”

He could hear the gulp Mac gave clear on the other side of the car. “No, go on. How…how long were you there?”

Methos had to give MacLeod credit. He had courage…perhaps more courage than Methos had himself. The telling of this was…difficult. No one knew these things -- not Kronos, no lover, even that desert healer hadn’t heard these tidbits.

“My…recuperative powers fascinated my master and he spent the majority of my mortal life torturing me to see how much pain I could take. He finally reached my limit one day and killed me…but I didn’t stay dead. Once I realized that I couldn’t die…it was transformative. One night I grabbed one of his warriors’ swords and started hacking…and when I was through, I was drenched from head to foot in blood and the only people breathing in that camp were slaves. I took my master’s finest horse, his gold, and started running…and in some ways, it feels like I’ve been running ever since,” Methos confessed.

The silence that followed hit like an avalanche, burying everything. They both sat there watching the windshield wipers flip back and forth before Mac finally got up the nerve to ask, “What happened then?”

“MacLeod, we’re talking five-thousand years here. Do you really think we have time for this?” Methos challenged, his courage faltering under those perceptive eyes.

Mac gestured at the snarled traffic in front of and behind them. “We’ll be here at least that long. What happened after you left?”

With a defeated sigh, Methos gave in, “I spent the next few centuries enjoying my freedom…drinking, whoring, tasting all that life had to offer. I still didn’t know what I was for a good part of that time. All I knew was that I couldn’t die. At first, it was a wonderful feeling, a blessing even, but then….”

“Yes?” Mac prodded.

“Do you remember a few days ago when Byron was comparing himself to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – a monster doomed to walk the frozen wastelands forever?”

“Yes,” MacLeod nodded.

“I was about his age when I began to understand the curse of Immortality. And that’s exactly what it felt like,” Methos said, remembering those horrible times when the world started dying around him, not just individuals, but entire cultures and lifestyles.

“Methos….” Mac began in his counselor’s voice.

Not able to face another bout of idealistic optimism, Methos quickly challenged, “How did it feel when you went home to your birthplace a few years ago and even the castles were in ruins? That’s how it was for me when not just the people I knew in my mortal life died out, but their very language and culture. I have watched civilization rise and fall three times, Highlander. But that first time, it was the hardest.”

“What happened?” MacLeod questioned. 

Methos shrugged. “All of history happened. But specifically? Once I escaped slavery, I lived well – a real success story, from slave to king in under three-hundred years. Sumeria was…like a dream. We were a pastoral people for the most part, herders and traders. I…loved that life, Mac. I was able to…make things good for a very long time. I was a rich man with many holdings, the king of one of the most prosperous Sumerian city-states when the Empire fell. I was able to protect my people for a while, but then the Amorites came…they could have given the Horsemen lessons. They fell like jackals upon us and when they were through…there was nothing left. I buried lover after lover, friend after friend, the children I raised up in my keep…no one was spared. And with every body I laid in that cold earth, I buried a piece of my heart with them, until it got so bad that I…turned my feelings off. I stopped letting myself care about people.”

“And then?” MacLeod softly prompted.

Methos tried to make this passionate man understand, “I was dead inside. Deader than ever Byron was. I didn’t even have hunger in me anymore. And…I wanted to feel again. I roamed for a while, thought a different place might…inspire me. I made it as far as Wales, but…no matter where I went, I was the same wasteland inside. So, I returned home. Things hadn’t changed, for me or Sumeria. The emptiness ate at me until…until I discovered the thrill of committing the kinds of unspeakable acts that can’t help but raise up emotion…even if it was only revulsion. I made the Amorites pay for what they’d done to my people, but…it didn’t stop there. Revulsion turned to hunger, and hunger to bloodlust. The Amorites were too narrow a target, so I broadened my playing field. I grew to love the blood and the pain I could inflict on mortals. The freedom of that rampant sadism was…exhilarating. I met Kronos, joined the Horsemen and spent the next thousand years glorifying in the most savage emotions imaginable…until even that thrill became old. When I finally outgrew my violent adolescence, I was completely numb inside. It was as though there was nothing left – no hate, no bloodlust, no fire – it felt like every emotion had been burned out of me. I’ve spent the last three-thousand years trying to feel again.”

The silence in the front of the car once he finished speaking was absolute. It was strange, but Methos really felt as if he were on trial, awaiting judgment. 

Mac almost seemed to have stopped breathing; he was so still. Finally, the Highlander swallowed hard and grated out, “You were never dead. You just had more pain and loss than any one man should have to suffer. I’ve been there. It makes us all mad…careless. How could you not want blood after what had been done to you?”

The compassion was not what he’d expected, not after detailing how much he’d enjoyed his years with Kronos. The unsought understanding broke that brittle shield that kept him estranged from the bulk of his grief. Before he even knew what was happening, Methos’ cheeks were hot with tears and MacLeod was drawing him into his arms, right there in the middle of a crowded Parisian traffic jam.

It seemed like he held on and just cried forever, with Mac softly stroking his back and hair, planting light kisses on the crown of his head. The unexpected breakdown ripped through him, shattering him the way Alexa’s imminent demise had left him sobbing in Amanda’s arms that time she thought he’d set her up, but far stronger.

When the outburst had finally run its course, Methos was left totally limp, resting in the shelter of MacLeod’s arms, barely able to move, let alone think or worry. The material of Mac’s coat beneath his cheek was soaked through from his tears.

“Do you feel better now?” Mac asked.

The worry in that soft question made Methos lift his head to take a peek at his friend. MacLeod definitely had the look of a man who’d bitten off more than he could chew. The details of Methos’ childhood were obviously far more brutal than the soft-hearted warrior had ever imagined. But Mac didn’t look like he was ready to bail. 

The reality of that slowly penetrated. MacLeod wasn’t dumping him. Mac now knew it all, all the horrible parts, his time as a child prostitute…the Horsemen, his humiliating infatuation and affair with Lord Byron…the absolute lowest points of his life. Admittedly, there had been other times that were equally challenging, defeats and hurts that made him come close to despair, but none of them had been as offensive as what MacLeod now knew…and Mac was still hanging around. His friend hadn’t gone all cold and superior. Mac hadn’t closed him out or left him. Instead, his new lover had offered him understanding…understanding about the atrocities he’d committed as Death. 

As he sat there in MacLeod’s stalled vehicle, Methos began to recognize that, against all odds, he had finally found someone who could still care for him, even after he was truly known. That realization almost set him off again, but knowing how it would worry Mac made him force a smile and answer, “Strangely enough, yes. Your coat is soaked by the way,” he added, pulling back to his own side of the car.

For a second, he had trouble meeting Mac’s eyes, but the concern and warmth in those handsome features proved impossible to resist.

Mac’s expression still bore testament to the pain Methos’ revelation had inflicted on him, but the Highlander forced a weak smile and reached out to rest his right hand on Methos’ thigh.

There was nothing numbed or distanced about Methos’ reaction to that move. He hissed in a breath and trembled at the rush of sensation that exploded from that single point of contact. It was astounding just how fast the mood could change between them. One minute Methos was feeling stuffed up, cried out, and barely able to keep his eyes open; the next he was turned on harder than he could remember being in centuries. The air in the car was hot and close, the throbbing in his groin the only reality in his universe.

It was inevitable that his companion would notice. 

Mac still seemed surprised that he could get to him this way. His dark eyes widening, MacLeod said, “Neither of us is dead inside. As soon as this damn traffic starts moving again, I’ll prove it to you.”

“Was that supposed to help?” Methos groaned, beginning to sweat.

That burning hand gave what was probably supposed to be an encouraging squeeze to his thigh, which all but made Methos come. He gasped and grated out, “MacLeod, it has been over 180 years since I was last arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior in public. I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

With a throaty chuckle, Mac withdrew his hand.

Twelve eternally long minutes passed before the line of traffic finally began to crawl forward again. It was another half hour before the Citroen coasted down the slippery cobblestone ramp that led down to where the barge was moored. 

Methos couldn’t count how many times he’d come back here with Mac late at night like this over the last three years. Hell, he’d lived here on the barge for the three months his own flat was being redone. MacLeod’s home had always signified safe haven to him, much the same way Donald Seltzer’s place used to. But, with all his familiarity with the barge, he’d never viewed it quite the same way he did tonight.

The emotion that flashed through him when the Citroen finally stopped in front of the barge was as intense as the relief one felt upon finding facilities when one had an urgent need to use the toilet. Not even the icy downpour dimmed the feeling.

Methos was proud of them both. Though it was clear Mac wanted to jump his bones as desperately as he did MacLeod’s, they managed to control themselves until the port had closed behind them. Then it was no holds barred.

The barge was pitch black, the only light a faint grayness coming in through the windows. They were both soaked. The sweater Mac was wearing smelt like a wet sheep, Methos himself was at least ten pounds heavier from all the rain water he was carrying in his clothes. They should have headed straight for the bathroom for hot showers and dry clothes, yet the door had barely clanged shut when MacLeod grabbed hold of him with a frantic need Methos had never expected anyone to feel for him who’d heard the facts he’d revealed tonight. The hands on his shoulders were strong, the mouth that covered his own passionate and needy. 

The door was hard against his spine as Mac backed him up against the closet opposite the entrance. Mac was nearly as hard against his front, what with all that muscle crushing against him. Methos was aware of one spot in particular that felt like it was going to bore a hole right through his upper thigh as MacLeod pressed his pelvis tight against him.

Both their coats landed on the wooden landing, the metallic clanks of their concealed swords resounding through the hollow platform. Their hands were groping each other as frantically as their mouths. The feel of clothes against skin became unbearable. Frantic fingers worked to undo fastenings in the breathy silence. Their jackets followed the coats to the floor almost as soon as their weapons stopped clanking. 

The heat wasn’t up on the barge, so the minute his jacket was removed Methos started shivering, but Mac’s fire soon warmed him. MacLeod was still like a furnace, seeming to give off more heat than humanly possible for one man. Methos was amazed that the soaked sweater didn’t sizzle dry, but wet wool was all Methos could smell in the closeness. Never before had that scent been particularly arousing, but tonight, it had Methos hotter than a shepherd who’d spent one too many long, lonely nights in the company of his charges.

Then Mac’s hands were tugging his Henley over his head and Methos was doing his best to wrestle the damn wet sheep off MacLeod. Their undershirts all but evaporated. Bare chest pressed against bare chest as their mouths sucked each other’s juices down.

It was hot and bone-shakingly erotic…just what he’d needed to exorcise the demons of his past. 

Still locked in the kiss, they slid down to the floor. Methos landed flat on their wet clothing with Mac right on top of him. Methos’ hands ran over that broad back, delighting in the silken skin and strong muscles he could feel rippling beneath as MacLeod’s hands worked between their waists. Mac was a smooth operator, he had to give his friend that. The pants were undone and lowered, his boxers, boots and socks following as the Highlander stripped them off him without once breaking the kiss.

Methos tried to return the favor, but his more restrictive bottom position limited his ability to move. He supposed he could have done something to change that, but he was enjoying all that warmth above him, so he just waited for the Boy scout to clue in and do the job for him. It didn’t take long. Once MacLeod got going, he bore very little resemblance to the strict moralist that could so often be such a pain in the ass. This MacLeod was something Methos had only seen hinted at in some of the Watchers’ Chronicles, wild and unrestrained, purely carnal, pure action.

Mac’s pants, briefs, and footwear were hastily removed one-handed as the Highlander’s other hand reacquainted itself with Methos’ genitals. There was no hesitation or caution tonight. Mac handled him as though they’d been doing this for centuries. His touch was certainly that practiced, that devastating. Though, at this point, Methos supposed Mac could have just glanced at him and he would have come on demand, he was so wild with arousal.

Of course, that presupposed that MacLeod could see him. It was so dark in the barge that they were still both working from touch and scent, which was perfectly fine with Methos. There was a certain degree of freedom to be had when the restraint of vision was removed. The skin just felt and reacted. The nose just sampled, as did the tongue. It was only the eyes that judged.

They played with each other like puppies, tongues and limbs grappling and investigating everywhere. Naked, they rolled around the limited floor space of the entry platform, both instinctively avoiding the stairs as they scrambled to get closer. Rolling over and over, they’d come up against one icy cold wall, then the other. But though there was a lot of tumbling and tusseling going on, there wasn’t the usual struggle for dominance Methos had come to expect in encounters with other men. Mac seemed as easy with Methos on top of him as below him, which was reassuring, even if it wasn’t precisely what Methos wanted.

He knew what he wanted and had lived long enough to recognize that he might never have a better chance at achieving his goal. There were no givens here. Everything could fall apart in the morning, doubtlessly would. But if it did, Methos was going to have had this night and this one wish fulfilled.

Momentarily on top, Methos broke the never-ending kiss and latched onto MacLeod’s throat. He sucked his way down that muscular neck, delighting in the groans and shivers he inspired. MacLeod was a feast to all his senses. Mac’s chest was a smorgasbord of tastes and textures, from the incredible softness of the hollow of his throat to the pert buds of nipples and downy chest hair. Methos sampled them all, repeatedly.

His tongue became intimately familiar with every tiny bump of each nipple. He took his time there, earning his moans before moving lower. The moist trail he blazed from nipples to stomach pricked Mac’s skin in goosebumps. When he reached that shadowed belly button that had taunted him so frequently when Mac’s ghi would fall open in practice sessions, Methos memorized the depth and flavor of MacLeod’s navel. He laved his way across the body hair sectioning the tender underbelly, stopping only when he encountered his target, the more wiry pubic hair. 

Methos lifted his head, instinctively looking towards Mac’s face for feedback…belatedly realizing that it was too dark to see even the cock he was so close to, let alone something so ephemeral as an expression. So, he used his hands instead, stroking over his companion’s body to determine the lay of the land, as it were. 

MacLeod was flat on his back, spread-eagled. His skin was dewed with sweat, his breathing coming in hoarse, labored pants…as open to this as he was ever likely to get.

Methos took a deep breath, lowered his head to where he knew his target to be and sucked that straining shaft in. Mac’s taste was fully as incredible as Methos remembered, salt, musk, and bitter precum, the flavor of a male on the verge of explosion.

Coming out of the dark as it did, the move was apparently a shock to MacLeod’s system, were the cry he released anything to go by. Mac’s body arched up at him, eager as a racehorse straining at the bit. Methos worked that shaft until it was more than slick, until it was dripping with moisture, then…he pulled back to MacLeod’s desperate moan.

“No, please…Methos...don’t stop….”

“Sssh,” he soothed. Shifting around in the darkness, he straddled Mac’s hips, positioned himself, and before his lover could so much as guess his intent, Methos slowly lowered himself onto that throbbing cock.

“Aaaaaahhhh…” Mac’s cry was the soul of ecstasy. The man sounded as though every one of his wet dreams had just been made flesh.

Methos could feel the astonishment in the other man’s body as he absorbed that hungry penis into himself inch by slow inch. The stretch was amazing. Mac was so wide, so powerful. The saliva was already starting to evaporate, so the entry was a little drier than Methos would have liked, but otherwise, it was sheer nirvana. Mac was finally inside him, where Methos had wanted him from the day he’d laid eyes on MacLeod.

Somehow, the strung out Scot managed to hold himself perfectly still while Methos adjusted to the penetration. Even without being able to see his face, Mac seemed to sense that this wasn’t something Methos was accustomed to any longer.

Finally, Mac was in. Methos had slid straight down the mighty cock to rest against the taut balls below. The only sounds in the room were the pounding rain outside and the painful grunts of their labored breathing.

Methos rocked a little, experimenting. Mac gasped and thrust up further into him. It felt good, but Mac wasn’t hitting the spot Methos was looking for, and he knew that Mac’s bottom position had to be restrictive as hell when his body wanted nothing more than to let loose and fuck.

“Follow me,” Methos grated out.

Understandably confused, Mac said, “Huh?” at about the same moment Methos leaned over sideways.

MacLeod had only two choices then. Stay still and suffer a painful detachment or go along with Methos for the ride.

Bright boy that he was, MacLeod followed him over.

Never breaking that internal point of contact, Methos used five-thousand years of experience servicing men to keep Mac inside him until he’d shifted them around to the desired position. After the course of some grunting and fluent, multi-lingual cursing, they ended up with Methos on the bottom and Mac kneeling between his drawn-up legs. 

It was hardly the setting Methos had pictured for this. The wooden entry deck was cold and drafty. Their shed clothing was lumpy and wet beneath him. Someone’s boot tip or sword hilt was poking Methos in the small of his back, but….

It was real and it was happening and Methos would never forget a moment of it.

“You okay?” Mac astounded him by grunting out once they’d stopped shifting about.

“Aaahhh…perrrfeccct…” Methos rasped back, holding onto Mac’s shoulders because he truly feared the power of the feeling pulsing through him might send him into orbit. Mac was so big, so wide…the fit was tight, unbearably exhilarating. “Just…move. Please, Duncan….”

His use of MacLeod’s given name seemed to have an immediate effect.

Mac gasped and started thrusting. 

It was on Mac’s third inward plunge that he found the spot Methos had been hoping he’d discover. The quicksilver pleasure-altered state, becoming…satori. The pleasure was like being at the heart of a thundercloud when the lightning burst forth; so intense, it was devastating. It sparked through Methos’ nerve endings like lightning running along the wet ground, sizzling and searing everything in its path. 

Methos came with that first sharp burst of ecstasy.

MacLeod had more staying power. His pelvis thrust like a piston, burying that hungry cock deeper inside Methos with every inward plunge. There was no quarter given, no restraint, nor was any asked for. Methos had waited all his life for this, to be taken by someone who wanted him as is, warts and all. Mac rode him the way Methos had dreamed it would happen, wild and conscienceless. With every savage thrust, Methos opened himself up wider, took more of his friend, rode the storm out even though his own insides were still lost in a revolving swirl of mindless release.

One final thrust, that felt hard enough to split him right down the center, but which he knew from experience never even nicked him inside, sent Mac over the edge. With a mindless growl, MacLeod came deep inside him. 

Methos was only conscious of it through Mac’s sudden stillness and the convulsions he could feel running through that masterful cock. Mac’s orgasm went on and on…finally stopping what felt like centuries later.

An awkward moment followed immediately afterward, when he could feel Mac’s better sense returning, could feel his friend realizing what they were doing and where they were doing it. They’d never even made it down the steps to the living room.

“My God…Methos…” Though Mac sounded stunned, the hands that settled on Methos’s hips were sure.

They both hissed as Mac slid out of him. Methos knew that they were both going to be sore for a while from the animalistic coupling.

He sought Mac’s face again, needing to know how his partner was feeling about things…and encountered only blackness.

Methos found himself cursing the very darkness that had given him such freedom a few short moments ago, for he had no idea how MacLeod was feeling about what they’d done. Oh, Methos had a clear enough idea that MacLeod’s body had enjoyed the sex, but, once again, this was probably one of those issues they should have discussed before leaping in. No one knew better than Methos how fucking had a way of altering the dynamics of a relationship. Mac was so conventional in many ways that this might have been more than the Highlander could handle right now. 

Another incredibly strained second followed, wherein Methos was certain he’d made a horrible mistake by initiating these events, but then Mac was settling down beside him on the rain soaked clothes, pulling him close.

Lying there in Mac’s arms, Methos barely dared to breathe while he listened to the noisy wheels of Mac’s thoughts turn in the utter darkness.

Finally, MacLeod sighed and hesitantly ventured, “I’m guessing I don’t owe any apologies here.”

“You’d guess right,” Methos replied, equally careful, equally unsure of his footing here.

“This….” Mac began and faltered.

“Yes?” Methos braced himself. Here it was, the ‘you’ve gone too far’ death knell Methos had been waiting for since Mac had touched his hand last night and initiated this madness.

“I…didn’t mean for it to be like this, didn’t mean to attack you like an animal. After…what you told me, I wanted to bring you back here and love you slow and careful, the way you should have been handled your whole life.”

Methos heard his own gulp; it was so loud Joe probably heard it clear on the other side of Paris. 

_The way he should have been handled his whole life_ …this man was going to kill him, one way or another.

“There’s nothing to stop you from doing that later,” Methos answered when he thought he could trust his voice.

“Huh?” Bless him, Mac might be a bright boy most of the time, but in post-coital daze, he was slower than Silas.

“We’ve got all night, Mac,” Methos offered.

“So we do,” MacLeod answered, placing a soft kiss on Methos’ brow. “But I don’t want to spend it here in the doorway. You do realize that we’re lying on a hard floor again?”

Methos smothered a grin. This man made him so happy. “I had noticed.”

“Methos?”

The suddenly serious tone raised the small hairs on the back of his neck. Methos froze in Mac’s arms, continuing to breathe by an act of will as he tried for nonchalance with, “Yes?”

MacLeod’s fingers were stroking the back of his neck, grazing his right ear, making him shudder. 

“I didn’t expect it to be like this between us.”

“Like what?” Methos asked, relaxing. Mac was cuddling him too fondly for this to be a goodbye.

“Like brushfire. It used to be like this with Tessa. We’d barely get in the door some nights before we’d combust….”

Mac was comparing what they had to his relationship with Tessa? Joe had told him that Tessa had been the love of Mac’s life, that even now, MacLeod was still grieving over her loss.

But…Mac couldn’t mean it that way. MacLeod was talking combustibility…sex. That was a far cry from the love he’d felt for Tessa.

“Have a care, Highlander,” Methos warned. 

“Huh?” 

Though he couldn’t see his lover’s face, he could feel MacLeod’s eyes trying to distinguish his features in the dark as Mac bent his head to look down at where Methos’ cheek was resting against his chest.

“Tessa was…special. Don’t…mistake chemistry for….”

Methos felt the freeze that came over Mac’s muscles. His warm, comfortable pillow turned to lead.

“You think all we have is chemistry?” Mac demanded.

The offended tone made Methos wince. He’d unwittingly done it again, set them at odds.

Before he knew what was happening, Methos found himself flipped over flat onto his back. His wrists were captured and held close to his shoulders as Mac settled on top of him again, bearing down on him until he could feel Mac’s wrathful breath on his face. If there had been light in the room, Methos knew that he would have seen Mac glaring down at him.

His mouth suddenly dry, he swallowed hard and looked for an answer.

“I told you before that I don’t know what _this_ is, that I’m groping in the dark here. There’s nothing wrong with chemistry, Mac,” Methos said, trying not to show how unnerved he was by the abrupt turnaround. 

Was he about to get the violence he’d asked for last night?

All he could hear was the pounding of his own heart and Mac’s harsh breathing. All he could feel were those steel-hard muscles pressing down on him. He could see nothing, hadn’t a clue what Mac was feeling or thinking. He’d never been more lost in his life.

Mac’s entire body heaved as he took a deep breath. When he spoke, Methos could hear the hard-won patience in his voice, could sense how brittle his partner’s forbearance was at this moment.

“Okay,” MacLeod said, “we’re gonna go over this once and for all. Listen up.”

“You have my full attention,” Methos assured, hearing the irony in his own voice.

“Cut the sarcasm,” Mac demanded, taking another deep breath. “First-off, Tessa isn’t the only person who’s ever been special to me. In four-hundred years, I’ve loved a lot of women, Methos, maybe more than I can count or remember. But in all that time, you are the first man I’ve loved. Now maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it makes you pretty damn special in my book.”

Methos gulped. With just a few brief sentences, MacLeod had him feeling like an unschooled barbarian again.

“I…appreciate the gift you’re giving me, Mac,” Methos all but swore.

And once again, it was the wrong thing to say. Mac wasn’t angry this time. Methos could tell by the sound of the sigh that he’d disappointed again.

“It’s a gift you’re giving me, too. This isn’t a one-way deal here. What we just shared. My God, Methos, do you know how that made me feel?”

Methos did his own sighing, “Mac, great sex is always….”

“This isn’t about sex, damn it!” MacLeod shouted. 

Close as they were, the sound reverberated through Methos’ chest as through a hollow drum. 

Tired of being intimidated, his own patience shattered and Methos snapped right back with, “Then you need to tell me what it is about. What am I doing here, MacLeod? Satisfying your curiosity? Standing in for Amanda? Working off a Quickening? What is this about? And don’t you dare say _friendship_ again. You never slept with a male friend in your life…”

As he realized what he’d just said, Methos’ words trailed off, even before he heard MacLeod confirming, “No, I haven’t. Damn it, man, don’t you see? It’s the same thing that’s been ripping us apart since the day we met.”

“That would be carnal interest,” Methos emotionlessly supplied.

“No, that would be love. You’ve gone to bat for me too many times to even pretend it’s anything else for you, while I’ve….” now it was MacLeod’s voice that faded away.

“While you?” Bleeding behind his emotional barricades, Methos could barely get the two syllables out.

“While I’ve done my damnedest to ignore what I was feeling and…sublimate it. I’m not doing that anymore, Methos. I’m…in love with you.”

The words were almost anti-climatic now that they’d been said. Beyond shock, Methos just lay there under his friend until finally Mac was forced to ask, “Why can’t you believe that?”

Methos swallowed past a tight throat. “I believe that you believe it.”

“But you don’t believe it will last?” MacLeod challenged.

“Nothing lasts, MacLeod.”

Belatedly, Methos realized that he might have damned his chances by voicing that pessimistic truth that every Immortal knew. He held his breath, waiting for Mac’s anger to explode again, but…nothing happened.

After what felt like an eternity, Mac vented another breath, then quietly stated, “I guess there’s been little enough in your life to make you believe in anything except loss. We’ve both got…a lot to learn here…a lot to unlearn. You gonna stick around long enough to give it a shot?”

MacLeod couldn’t possibly be as anxious as he sounded. Methos just wasn’t accustomed to being…that important to anyone.

He lifted his wrists up from where MacLeod had them pinned to the floor. Mac let him move the moment he tried for freedom, for all that the Highlander had conquered his heart, Mac was no overlord who needed submission. 

Methos slid his hands upwards along Mac’s muscular forearms until he was palm to palm with his partner, then he interlocked his fingers with the Highlander’s. 

The grip was painfully tight when it was returned…strong as Kronos’ chains, sweet as Mary Shelly’s kiss…perfect.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Methos answered.

“Promise?”

Methos searched for a suitable surety, something MacLeod would believe if he swore upon it. Finally, he whispered, “On Alexa’s grave.”

He felt the start MacLeod gave at that, knew he’d finally said something right.

Fifteen breaths and three times as many heartbeats later, MacLeod questioned, “Aren’t you going to ask for a promise from me in return?”

“No.”

“No?” Mac sounded completely puzzled. “Why not?”

“You’re a man of your word, MacLeod,” Methos answered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I won’t have you chained to me by some outdated promise. I…come with a lot of baggage. I want you to always know that the door is open, should you feel the need to go. And….” this was almost too honest to reveal, but Mac had told him he loved him…and it had been more than words. Mac really believed he was in love with him. That was more than Methos had ever dreamed possible. He owed his lover something in return.

“Yes?” MacLeod gently prompted.

“And that way every day we stay together, I’ll know that it’s because that’s where you really want to be.” There, he’d said it. Methos felt like a fool, but he’d gotten the embarrassing sentiment out.

“God, Methos…”

His mouth was taken again. As the delightful kiss deepened, tongues and genitals becoming involved as their bodies slid as close as humanly possible, Methos recognized that they were going to be making it on the cold, hard floor…again.

********************


	3. For What It Is

_For What It Is_

Life was about surprises, or so it seemed to Duncan MacLeod after four-hundred some odd years of living. Every time he started to get bored or when things seemed to be going too smoothly, something unexpected would happen to stir things up. Most times, the excitement wasn’t the good kind. No matter how hard an Immortal might try to escape it, the Game always caught up with him, sooner or later. And if it wasn’t the Game, his mortal friends would die out one by one, and it would be time to move on again. Surprise and change came hand in hand, neither of them were especially easy, but over the course of four centuries, he’d grown accustomed to nothing lasting.

The latest development was perhaps the most incredible he’d encountered yet, like one of Carl Robinson’s fly balls, coming at him like a rocket out of left field. After four-hundred years of enthusiastic womanizing, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod found himself hopelessly in love with another man. Not just a man. Another Immortal. The oldest Immortal of all, to be exact. Methos.

In his more lucid moments, which were admittedly few and fleeting, MacLeod knew it was totally insane, that they hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of making it work, but...every night they continued to fall into bed together. This man who had been both slave and king, Death and healer, coward and savior continued to offer his body to MacLeod, and MacLeod would helplessly fall upon Methos like a starving man offered a loaf of bread. It felt like that at times, like what Methos gave him was feeding his very soul.

“Hey, Mac! How’s it going?” A familiar, gruff voice greeted from behind him.

MacLeod shook himself out of his daydream, smiled and looked up from his salad. “Hi, Joe. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Maurice’s might have become their regular hangout over the last few weeks, but it was an evening gathering place. This was the first time MacLeod himself had been in his old friend’s club in daylight.

“Sound check. We’re playing again on Thursday,” Joe said, juggling his guitar case and walking canes with practiced ease as he maneuvered to MacLeod’s table and sank into the opposite chair. Baby blue was definitely Dawson’s color. The fleece jacket Joe had on over his ever-present tee shirt made his eyes stand out like alpine lakes in a field of snow. “What are you doing here at this time of the day?”

“There was an estate auction a few blocks from here,” MacLeod said.

“Ah, get anything good?”

MacLeod smiled, still happy with his good fortune. “A few pieces. How’s the sound check going?”

“So far, I’m it. The rest of the band’ll drift in soon enough. Think you guys will come up for air long enough to make the show?” Dawson joked, his grin brighter than the noon sun.

It was a ridiculous reaction for an Immortal his age, but MacLeod could feel his cheeks heating. 

“We haven’t missed one yet -- have we?” he asked.

“You were fifteen minutes late to the last show,” Dawson reminded.

“Traffic,” MacLeod explained, putting his full attention on the cherry tomato he was attempting to spear with his fork. Unlike his latest lover, who could fabricate without missing a beat, he was a lousy liar.

Dawson’s chuckle made it plain that he’d been no more successful than usual. It was strange. When someone’s life was at stake, he could play out an Academy Award winning charade, but when it came to lying to a friend, he was hopeless.

“You’re looking a little lop-sided today, Mac,” Dawson commented, stretching his prosthesis out in front of him.

“Hmmm?” this time he was legitimately chewing.

“No Adam,” Joe explained, using Methos’ cover name, no doubt in deference to the other diners who, while not exactly within earshot, were a little too close to make it comfortable speaking a legend’s name aloud. “Everything okay?”

It was touching really, how worried about them Joe was. 

“Everything’s great, Joe,” MacLeod responded.

“Really?”

“Really,” MacLeod assured. “You’re going to give me a complex if you keep asking.”

“Sorry, I just….”

“Keep expecting everything to fall apart?” MacLeod suggested.

“Yeah, I guess,” Joe admitted.

“You’re not alone in that, but it’s not gonna happen.” It seemed like MacLeod spent half his time making this same promise in one form or another. Either he was assuring himself or Methos and now Dawson.

“You sound pretty certain,” Joe commented, still unable to totally conceal his surprise at this new development in his friends’ relationship.

“It doesn’t make any sense, I know. I thought we’d be at each other’s throats in a couple of days, but…he’s good for me, Joe,” MacLeod was doing his best to play it cool, but he could hear the amazement in his own voice. He felt a little strange discussing this sort of thing with Dawson at all, but…MacLeod knew how hard his estrangement from Methos had been on the mortal, who was friend to them both. Joe had almost as much at stake here as they did, for if they screwed this up, it would affect Dawson’s life almost as badly as their own.

“Think it’s sort of a mutual thing there, Mac.”

“You think?” a four-hundred-year-old Immortal should not sound that uncertain, MacLeod told himself, but he couldn’t help it. Methos was the most frustrating enigma he’d ever encountered. From day one, he’d been fascinated by the dichotomies that made up his friend’s character – so much pessimism, yet, at the darkest moment of MacLeod’s life, it had been Methos there fighting for him, telling him that he had to have faith, promising him that redemption was possible. 

“I know. Look, he’s a hard one to read, but I’ve known him for over fourteen years now and….”

“Yes?” MacLeod encouraged. Joe and he so rarely just talked about this kind of stuff. He was eaten up with curiosity over what Joe made of all this. 

“When I first met Adam, he was just another researcher for the Watchers. I thought he was just a kid out of grad school. Despite the difference in our ages, we hit it off immediately. Whenever Watcher business would bring me over here, Adam, Don Seltzer, and I would meet for the occasional drink. It was weird. Don and me, we each had a good twenty years on Pierson, but…he always interacted with us like a contemporary, not a kid stuck with two old farts.”

“Most kids couldn’t keep up with you, Joe,” MacLeod pointed out. He’d never seen a mortal juggle as much as Joe Dawson did on a daily basis. Between running the Watchers, his tavern, and his latest musical tour, Joe had three full time jobs – which he pulled off with a grace and style MacLeod still couldn’t fathom.

“Thanks, but, to get back to Adam…” Joe said, “The change in him is obvious to someone who’s known him as long as me.”

“I can’t see any difference,” Mac confessed, thoughtfully chewing his salad.

“No? Well take a good look at his eyes. Adam was always good company, but…the laughter never touched his eyes, Mac. There was always this…cloud of pain surrounding him. I’d seen it before with guys who’d done too many tours in ‘Nam, old eyes, like he’d seen way too much death, you know?”

MacLeod knew. “Yeah, we all feel the loss sometimes. It comes with the territory, but it’s always there with him, just beneath the surface.”

“Thing is,” Joe said, “that dark cloud hasn’t been so thick these past few weeks. The smile isn’t so cynical. And the way he looks at you, it….”

“Scares the life out of me,” MacLeod completed when Joe fell silent, admitting the truth that he’d been denying these last five weeks.

“Scares you?” Dawson looked surprised. “You’re not usually one to run from a strong feeling, Mac.”

MacLeod pushed his plate away, giving up the pretense of eating. He’d never thought about discussing any of this with Joe, but now that he was, things were beginning to straighten themselves out in his mind. 

“It’s not the feeling. It’s…you know how he is, Joe. He’s got all these barricades and yet, under it….” Even though Joe was close friend to them both, MacLeod still couldn’t come out and admit how fragile his new lover was under those prickly outer shields. “…I get the feeling I could destroy him without even trying.”

“That’s because you’re probably the one thing he really believes in,” Joe said in that casual way he had of stating things that were painfully obvious.

MacLeod was startled. Dawson was rarely that far off base when it came to reading people. 

“No, Joe. He hasn’t got any faith in me at all. He doesn’t say anything about it, but every morning…it’s like he’s shocked I’m still there,” he hesitantly admitted the one problem that had been bothering him since the moment he and Methos had tumbled into bed together. He’d said everything he could say, let every touch and action speak the depths of his feelings for his new lover, and Methos’ eyes still had that shadow of doubt every second they spent together. It was driving him nuts.

“It isn’t you he lacks faith in, Mac. Give him some time,” Joe practically pleaded.

MacLeod’s head jerked up. Focusing completely on Dawson, he gave up the pretense of eating. “What do you mean it isn’t me? What else could it be?”

“Mac, the guy was one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It’s not you he doubts; it’s himself, his own worthiness. How would you feel if you were carryin’ that kinda past with you, if you’d hidden it as long as he did? Adam talks a good rap about acceptance, but nobody who isn’t running from his own ghosts downs as much booze on a daily basis as he does.”

MacLeod gaped at Dawson, seeing the truth of the words. The night after poor Mike’s funeral, Methos had confessed as much to MacLeod himself with that ‘I won’t tie you with a promise’ line. Methos had quoted the baggage of his past as one of the reasons. Mac had wanted to make Methos comfortable in their relationship so bad that he’d never really considered the effects that one-way promise could have on his friend’s ego. In retrospect, he might just as well have said, ‘yeah, it’s too much to expect anyone to sign on for the long haul’. Christ, but he’d messed up. 

“You…you’re right, Joe,” Mac whispered, shaken by how blind he’d been.

“Hey, don’t look like that, man,” Dawson begged. “His past isn’t your fault.”

Joe was a good friend. Taking a deep breath, MacLeod admitted his own culpability in the situation. “Maybe not, but I didn’t have to hold it against him the way I did after Bordeaux. Maybe if I’d been a bit more understanding….”

“And maybe if he’d been upfront with us from the start, none if it would have happened. Should haves, could haves…they’re pretty useless. We just have to deal with what is.” 

“I know. That’s what he says,” Mac smiled. “Anyone ever tell you you’re pretty wise for such a youngster?”

Joe’s grin was like a burst of sunlight through the city winter. “Not nearly often enough.”

They both laughed, looking up as Joe’s noisy bass player and drummer crashed into the place with their usual subtlety.

“Guess I better get to work,” Joe sighed.

“And I better get home.” After peeling enough bills out of his wallet to pay for his meal, MacLeod pulled on his long black leather jacket. “We’ll see you Thursday night, Joe.”

“Sure thing,” Joe’s grin visibly brightened at the ‘we’ as he gathered up his walking canes.

“Oh, and, Joe?”

“Yeah?” Dawson asked.

“Thanks.”

“Any time, man, any time,” Joe replied as the two musicians came bounding over to him, all aflutter over the new song tape Dawson had sent them home with last week. 

Smiling as his friend’s cheeks heated at the effusive praise, MacLeod made his exit.

********************

Blissful domesticity was not a concept the oldest Immortal had much experience with, even after sixty-seven marriages. He wasn’t Duncan MacLeod. He didn’t know how to lay it all on the line and just deal. While it was true that Methos had had over sixty wives, not a one of them had known his true nature, not even the Immortality part, let alone his past with the Horsemen. No matter how much you loved someone, when you were living that kind of a lie, twenty-four hours, seven days a week, for as many years as your partner survived, you could never really relax. His relationship with MacLeod was the first where he didn’t have to hide…anything.

Complete openness, that was another concept he hadn’t had much truck with. It was perhaps the most frightening thing he’d ever done, standing completely naked before another, with his past as out in the open as his bare genitals. All those years he’d spent wishing for a lover, or even a friend, who could accept him past and all, it had never occurred to him how terrifying it would be, because when things went sour; it would be the real him that was rejected, not some persona he was playing.

But Mac wasn’t showing any of the usual warning signals that things were about to plunge into a downhill spiral. Admittedly, it was early days yet. Only six weeks had passed since Byron’s death, that emotion-fraught night they’d fallen into bed together. If this had been a regular marriage, they’d still be on their honeymoon. But Methos had been on enough honeymoons to know that problems usually manifested long before this time. Hell, a week after Byron and he had altered the nature of their relationship, Methos had known the mistake he’d made, but his heart had taken a little longer to acknowledge that fact. Mac wasn’t a mistake. Duncan MacLeod was the rightest piece of loving he’d ever lucked into.

The fact that Methos knew that it was only a matter of time until he’d fuck it up was killing him. He wasn’t good at this togetherness thing. It had been over three centuries since he’d had a spouse, not that Mac had ever equated what they were doing here to a marriage, but the patterns they’d set over this past month had that kind of permanence to it.

It was all…too new to him. Methos wasn’t used to stability and trust. He wasn’t used to tenderness from a man. He wasn’t accustomed to curbing his tongue and staying somewhere near the sobriety zone after dark and, yet, he’d done it gladly. If Mac could stay, then he could play the domestic scene for as long as it lasted.

As he stared down at his current effort, Methos couldn’t help but think he was really losing it. Two thousand years had passed since he’d made Porpisius’ specialty. Kronos would have ruptured himself laughing if he’d ever seen his strategist slaving away over a hot stove like this, but here he was in what passed for a kitchen on the barge, stirring the chestnuts and artichokes on a painfully low flame, all because he’d once promised Duncan MacLeod that he’d make the dish for him some day and this windy Parisian evening had seemed the perfect night for road tar.

He froze as he sensed the buzz of another Immortal. Mac was right on time. The wine was chilled, the road tar would be done any minute.

Humming a little to himself, Methos scraped the bottom-most layer of paste upwards. This stage was vital. If he didn’t pay constant attention to his creation, it would singe and turn to rock.

Distracted as he was, it wasn’t until the barge door opened that Methos recognized his error. This had happened before. Andrew Keane had shown up around the time he was expecting MacLeod and he hadn’t been paying sufficient attention to the approaching Immortal’s signature to keep from ending up with a sword at his neck until far too late. He almost wished it were Keane again as his gaze wandered from the black suede stiletto boots the Immortal wore, up her shapely lags, slender hips, pert bust, up to the gamin face that his lover had never been able to resist. 

It was his newest worst nightmare given form, Amanda, dressed to kill in a short black mini-skirt and bright pink angora sweater, under her long, open black leather coat.

Her grin was instantaneous and infectious. “Hi, ya, Methos.”

“Amanda,” he tried for politeness, but was unable to suppress a shudder as she set down a suitcase he hadn’t noticed till that moment.

“No Mac?” Amanda asked with a piquant mew, coming in and taking off her coat. He watched as she hung it up on a peg by the door, right beside his own, as though she lived here and had every right to, which, of course, she did. Amanda was just another one of the many realities they had avoided discussing during the past six weeks.

His mouth suddenly drier than the tar in the skillet, Methos shook his head and tried for normality.

“Are you okay?” Amanda asked, her lovely face filled with concern as she all but floated over to him, so graceful and light on her feet that she barely seemed to touch the ground. 

Methos had envied Mac this when he’d first laid eyes on her, but now…the very sight of her filled him with dread. There was no competing with this. MacLeod had been addicted to her for over three-hundred years now. And with good reason. She was utterly exquisite.

“I’m fine,” he covered as a blast of her perfume hit him.

The word ‘vamp’ could have been coined for this woman, probably had been; she was certainly old enough. He cut short the unkind thought. It wasn’t Amanda’s fault that he’d pinned his dreams on a fantasy. 

“That smells wonderful. What is it?” she asked, staring down at the unprepossessing meal.

His heart not up to dealing with this, Methos told her the dish’s name, then added, “I’d promised to cook it for Mac, but I forgot that I have a previous commitment. I’m glad you showed up. Would you mind looking after it till he gets here? He should be back any minute.”

And Methos definitely didn’t want to be around for that awkward entrance, that sophisticated he wasn’t. 

Her brow creased into a totally adorable frown. 

“Look after it?” she asked, sounding as though he’d handed her the leash of a seven-hundred pound, man-eating tiger.

Recalling that Amanda was fully capable of burning water, Methos softly explained, “All you have to do is stir it for another ten minutes. Mac should be back by then.”

And he needed to be long gone by that time.

“Aren’t you going to stay?” Amanda looked understandably confused.

“No, like I said….”

“A prior commitment,” her tone made it plain that he’d fooled no one. “What’s going on, Methos?”

“Nothing, really, I just…have to get out of here.” Before she could utter another word, Methos had handed her the wooden spoon, decked his apron, and was headed for the door.

“METHOS?” the anxiety in her shout was not feigned.

About to let rip with a sarcastic remark about her culinary phobia, the words died on his lips at the open worry in her stunning features. This would be so much easier if he didn’t like Amanda, but she’d shown herself a friend. He didn’t have the heart to cut into her, even though she’d just destroyed every hope he had of finding something lasting with MacLeod.

“Yes?” he asked, horrified to find himself on the verge of tears, like some hormonal teenager crushed over being jilted for the prom.

“Your sword,” she pointed to the weapon that was leaning next to the sink.

Nodding his thanks, he collected his blade, grabbed his coat to hide it, loped to the door and was halfway across the nearby footbridge when he saw MacLeod’s black Citroen pull into its usual spot. His broken heart contracted in his chest as he watched his lover step out of the car. Mac looked absolutely edible in those tight black pants and cobalt shirt. Well, it wouldn’t be wasted. Amanda appreciated Mac’s finer points as much as he did.

He watched MacLeod bend into the car to retrieve his coat, slam the door and jog up the entry plank to the barge. For a moment after Mac disappeared into the black hull, Methos stared down at the muddy brown waters of the Seine, tempted almost beyond his ability to resist. But in the end, he managed to reject the melodramatic impulse. He wasn’t mortal. Tossing himself off a bridge in winter would do nothing but chill him to the bone, and he was already so cold inside that Methos doubted he’d ever recover the fire he’d lost with Amanda’s return. 

When his face felt like a brittle, frozen mask, he turned to make his way across the windswept bridge. He told himself that it was the icy gale ripping into his face that made his eyes so blurry, but knew better.

There must have been sharper losses in the unnatural aberration that was his extended life. Watching those drunken mongrels beat Silla to death when he was five had to have hurt more than this. He’d put sixty-seven wives and countless lovers into the cold earth; any of those events should have been more traumatic than the inevitable termination of a relationship that he’d known from day one had no hope of surviving, and yet…. 

He felt as if his entire world had just crumbled around him, as though Sumeria and Rome had fallen again, as though he’d been totally dispossessed. 

Dispossessed? It was a ludicrous notion. He’d only been in Mac’s bed for under six weeks. He didn’t have those kinds of rights here.

Wondering how he could have allowed himself to become so attached in such an unbelievably brief time, Methos left the bridge, his feet automatically heading him towards his all but abandoned flat. Though nearly his entire wardrobe was now over at Mac’s place, he’d had sense enough to leave the important stuff behind. There were several bottles of Russian vodka in the cupboard under his sink. They might be enough to get him through the night.

Already tormented with visions of those mini-skirted legs wrapped around his lover’s thighs, cobalt silk crushed against fuzzy pink angora in an erotic tangle, Methos hurried home to lick his wounds, like the injured animal he was.

********************

“Mmmm, that smells great, Methos. What are you…?” Duncan MacLeod’s words trailed off as he turned from placing his coat on the wall rack. “Amanda?”

“Hi, Mac!” Amanda left whatever she was stirring at the stove to race across the living room and wrap herself totally around the stupefied Highlander.

Left with no choice but to accept her weight or tumble over, MacLeod automatically braced her as his mouth was taken in a devastatingly deep kiss. 

Sweet, her mouth was always so amazingly tasty. Her perfume, both bottled and natural, was all around him, as enticing as all that soft femininity. As ever, Amanda was as subtle and as irresistible as a freight train without breaks. Overwhelmed, his body reacted as it had a hundred times in the past when she’d surprise him like this, kissing back just like old times, only….

It wasn’t old times.

Recalled to his present reality, MacLeod gently, but firmly, pulled himself out of the kiss. Depositing her back on her stiletoed boots, he looked around his home in bewilderment for the person he’d expected to find here. 

No Methos.

He stared back at Amanda. Though understandably confused, she looked perfectly normal, not at all like a woman who’d walked in on her lover’s latest paramour. 

“What’s going on, Mac?” Amanda asked, her own spooked gaze doing a reconnaissance of the barge, as though searching for an intruder.

“What are you doing here, Amanda?”

“What do you mean ‘what am I doing here’? I just got into town.” 

Recognizing that none of this was Amanda’s fault, MacLeod toned down the aggression and asked as normally as he could, “Was Methos here when you arrived?”

“Yeah. He said he had a prior engagement and had to leave. He asked me to…oh, hell!” 

They both turned towards the galley at the same time, smelling the smoke.

MacLeod reached the stove first. Whatever had been cooking in the skillet was now a blackened, flaming mess. Grabbing a potholder, he tossed the pan into the sink and drowned it with water.

“Damn. I’m sorry,” Amanda apologized.

“It’s okay.” His heart twisted in his chest as his gaze fell upon a pile of chestnut shells on the counter and he realized what Methos must have been making before he was interrupted. Uncertain how to proceed in this awkward circumstance, MacLeod stalled for time by asking, “Did, ah, Methos say anything before he left?”

Tempting as it probably had been, MacLeod knew Methos wouldn’t have revealed anything to Amanda. _When in doubt, do nothing_ was his lover’s credo. But it must have been hard on Methos.

“Nothing other than he had to leave,” Amanda answered his question. “Is he okay, Mac? He was acting really weird. He cut out of here like a scalded cat.”

No doubt. Her concern only made him feel guiltier. This should never have happened. But, then, it wasn’t as though Amanda ever left a forwarding address, so that he could have told her it wasn’t a good time for a visit.

“He’ll be okay,” MacLeod answered. 

“Good.” Once the subject of Methos had been dispensed with, Amanda’s entire attitude changed. That expression of knowing, sensual mischief that always got to him quirked her lovely face as she all but purred at him, “Now that you’re home, why don’t we slip into something more comfortable and….”

MacLeod stepped back as she reached for him. He didn’t know what he was going to say, but he knew that going to bed with her tonight was not in the game plan. “Amanda…”

For a moment, she just stared at him, her body language descrying her surprise before a look of resignation overcame her confusion. “God, you’ve got that married look you had when you were living with that artist Lisa….”

“Tessa,” MacLeod corrected, as always seeing the childish snub as the statement of jealousy it was. Amanda knew Tessa’s name as well as he did.

“I’ve only been gone a few weeks….”

“You’ve been gone four and a half months, Amanda,” Mac reminded, highly aware of the amount of time that had passed without so much as a postcard from her. She’d left less than a week after that unpleasant Keane business, when he was still trying to sort through all the issues raised by his memories of Culloden and Sean Byrnes’ death. While it was the nature of their relationship to have extended lapses of communication, it didn’t make it any easier on him. He needed someone to be there for him for the bad times, as well as the good, but the minute life got serious, Amanda was usually on the first plane out. 

Her eyes brightened, her gaze pulling quickly away from him.

He felt like a cad. There were no promises of exclusivity between them. They both shared a healthy appetite for the opposite sex and had always given each other the room they needed. It was an unspoken agreement. Yet, this was only the second time in their long history together when MacLeod was not free, or able to make himself so, when Amanda showed up on his doorstep unannounced. 

“Well, it can’t be that serious. She’s not living here yet. What’s her name?”

MacLeod’s muscles tensed up. “It’s serious, Amanda. I’m…sorry.”

“Come on, Mac. What’s the big secret? Who is she?”

For one of the few times in his life, he didn’t know what to say. Though his affairs were really none of her business, he’d hurt her and therefore felt he owed her something, but her temper made him wary. She’d already been gunning for Methos once in the past; Mac never wanted to go through that again, especially now. So, he settled on, “It’s not a secret. It’s just new….”

“Mac, never try to con a con artist. You’re hiding something. What is it? She’s one of us; isn’t she? It’s that cow Grace….”

“Amanda, it’s not Grace. Please. Can’t we just leave it….”

Her eyes sparked fire. “It’s not Grace, but it’s one of us; I’m right about that -- aren’t I?”

Sighing, MacLeod gave a reluctant nod, “Yes, it’s one of us.”

“And I know her…” Amanda fished.

“You…you’re acquainted. Amanda, this isn’t….” about to tell her it was none of her business, he thought better of the approach. Even so, Amanda only became angrier.

“Acquainted? What the hell does that mean? You don’t usually mince words like this. Why won’t you tell me who sheee…” her voice trailed off. 

A pensive frown wrinkled her lovely brow as her perfectly arched, slender eyebrows shot up. She was more than six-hundred years older than him. Though nowhere near as ancient as Methos, she had a grasp of human nature that sometimes still eluded MacLeod. Very little got past either of the two elder Immortals in his life.

MacLeod watched her gaze move from his face to the burnt dinner in the sink and from there, onto a bottle of wine that was chilling on the sideboard, which he only noticed at that moment. There weren’t any candles laid out on the table, but there just as well might have been. 

Mac could almost see her putting two and two together, to come up with the correct conclusion, as she no doubt recalled whom she had interrupted here tonight.

“Oh,” her eyes widened in shock. “I, ah, was operating under a basic misapprehension there, wasn’t I? We’re not talking about a she, are we?”

He shook his head no, prepared for all hell to break loose. Amanda might be over eleven-hundred-years-old, but she was still a woman, with all the vanity, pride and territorial imperatives that were part of the human condition. She was always catty about his involvement with other women. He couldn’t imagine what her reaction to his sleeping with another man would be.

But unpredictable was Amanda’s middle name. Instead of exploding, her features softened with wonder. “Well, I’ll be damned. He finally got up the nerve.”

“What are you talking about?” MacLeod asked, not really sure if he wanted to hear the answer. 

“Methos,” though circumstances had made it fairly apparent whom he was seeing, there wasn’t a trace of doubt in Amanda’s voice.

“You knew?” MacLeod gaped.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mac, don’t look so shocked. There’s not much I haven’t seen…or done. I’ve been around long enough to recognize when someone’s got it bad.”

“And you never thought of telling me?” MacLeod demanded, angry himself now.

“I thought you knew how he felt and were ignoring it,” Amanda shrugged, almost her airy self again.

“Why would you think that?” MacLeod asked, trying to understand. Of the two people who now knew about them, nobody but himself seemed surprised to find that Methos felt this way about him. Joe Dawson had only been surprised that they had acted upon it.

“Because his feelings for you were as clear as the nose on his face. For heaven’s sake, subtle he isn’t. Anytime you walked into a room, his eyes followed your every move. It was impossible to miss….”

“Not impossible,” MacLeod said, feeling three times a fool. 

“You really didn’t know?” she looked genuinely stunned.

“No, Amanda, I really didn’t know.”

“Poor dear Duncan,” she cooed, her eyes filled with an inexplicable compassion.

“I don’t understand,” MacLeod was forced to admit at last. “When you thought I was seeing another woman, you were furious.”

“Of course,” she smiled.

“But now that you know it’s a man I’m seeing, you’re not angry anymore?” Look at it any way he would, it made no sense. Not that very much with Amanda ever did.

“No.”

“Why not?” Mac didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted.

“Because everybody needs to take a walk on the wild side just once in their life. Don’t worry. You can make it up to me next time I’m in town.” Her grin was pure Puck, all mischief and libertine exuberance. 

“You’re making another major assumption here,” MacLeod pointed out, surprised by how stung he was by her confidence that whatever he shared with Methos would be history by the time she breezed into his life again.

“Oh, Duncan, don’t be so naïve. The one thing you aren’t is gay, my love.”

“It isn’t…just about sex with him,” MacLeod hesitantly offered, afraid of hurting her by revealing too much.

“Of course, it’s not.”

“Amanda, don’t patronize me,” he snapped. “I’m not a child. I know what I feel.”

“This is what – a week or two old?” Amanda guessed.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but we’ve been together six weeks now.”

“As long as that, huh?” her smile was infuriating. “Well, I’ll take my cute little butt out of here and let you get back to business. I’ll see you in a couple of months, Mac. Have fun.”

He remained stone still as she came over to him, stood on tiptoes and kissed him again. Temptress that she was, Amanda couldn’t leave it at a simple peck on the lips. The kiss deepened until MacLeod found himself having to force himself back or drown in her sensuality again.

As he tried to catch his breath and calm the portion of his anatomy that she had always had the most control over, she giggled like a schoolgirl. 

“See you in a couple of months, Mac,” with a speculative wink, she was at the coat rack, then out the door. 

Feeling as though he’d been hit by a truck, MacLeod stood in the middle of the galley, trying to calm his body and racing mind. 

She was so sure that this was some fleeting experiment, so sure….

MacLeod gasped in some air. In and out, two, three breaths, and his erection finally subsided. When the blood started returning to his brain, he recognized that he’d gotten off easy. There could have been scene hanging off every surface in the room if Amanda had handled this badly. Instead, she’d left with her dignity intact, smug in the assurance that things would go as they usually did when he took a mortal lover, that she’d have him back in a matter of time.

Her assumption that what he’d found with Methos was a passing phase irritated the hell out of him, mostly because Methos seemed to have the same impression. It always unnerved him when Amanda and Methos were on the same side in an argument with him. Living as long as they had, the ancient Immortals had an insight that MacLeod simply couldn’t hope to match in his four brief centuries of life. 

And yet, they were wrong in this, both of them: Amanda, because she just couldn’t understand that it would have to be a devastatingly powerful emotion to make him consider so major a change of lifestyle this late in the game, and Methos, because he was unable to see past his own insecurities.

At the thought of his lover’s insecurities, MacLeod’s worries returned full fold. Everything was still so new between Methos and him, still fragile. Amanda’s arrival must have been a terrible shock to his friend. He need only look at the charred meal in the sink to know how fast Methos had cleared out of here. 

Methos had forfeited the field without contest, Mac recognized. He wished that Methos had hung around, that his new lover had given him the benefit of the doubt here, but taking chances wasn’t part of Methos’ nature. Caution and suspicion were Methos’ approach to life. The traits were so finely honed that they sometimes bordered on cowardice. Time and again, MacLeod had seen his friend turn and run rather than investigate another Immortal’s presence. It was such an alien concept to MacLeod that he had difficulty getting his brain around it, but he did his best not to judge Methos’ prudence. He and his new lover had completely different approaches to life. They’d been reared in different ages, with different priorities and standards. MacLeod rarely understood what motivated Methos. 

Like tonight. If their positions had been reversed, if some woman from Methos’ past had shown up like this, MacLeod wouldn’t have just left like that. Though it was doubtful he would have revealed any more to her than Methos had to Amanda, he would have stayed to stake his claim, left it to Methos to determine where he wanted to be. But Methos hadn’t given him that opportunity. 

Mac tried telling himself that Methos’ flight tonight was just more of his usual caution, but he wasn’t any better at lying to himself than he was to friends. Methos hadn’t cut and run from the scene with Amanda to avoid a confrontation. In his guts, MacLeod knew that it was that same lack of confidence in him that had caused Methos to go. Or Methos’ lack of confidence in himself, Mac corrected, recalling Joe Dawson’s earlier insights. 

Either way, it wasn’t good.

Realizing that the more difficult portion of the evening might still be ahead of him, MacLeod checked to make sure that the burners were off on the stove, grabbed his coat, and headed back to his car.

Traffic being what it was, nearly another half hour passed before MacLeod was finally outside Methos’ flat. Paused on the threshold, MacLeod drank in the Immortal signature emanating from the other side of the closed door. His lover was so powerful, the air practically throbbed with his presence. Standing there reacting to Methos’ presence, Mac felt like the knocker in some ancient bell. Once he came up against the force that was Methos, it left him vibrating incessantly, in bed and out of it.

The door was, of course, locked when he tried it. A man didn’t live five millennia by being careless. 

It was only at that moment that it occurred to MacLeod that, in spite of everything they’d shared over the past few weeks, Methos had yet to offer him a key to his flat. In contrast, Methos had had the keys to both MacLeod’s dwellings for over two years now. 

He tried not to read any deeper meanings into the oversight, but knew in his heart that it was just another indication of how little faith his friend had in anyone. The world had left his Methos so emotionally scarred inside that it was a miracle the man was capable of any kind of emotion other than hate. 

Mac rested his forehead against the ice cold, beveled glass of the door, needing a moment to regroup before he knocked. He was still standing like that when the door swung open.

“MacLeod,” there was no welcome in those glinting hazel eyes. Every one of the barriers the Highlander had worked so hard to circumvent in the last month were tightly back in place. Looking at the somber figure standing there in the eerie blue shadows of the hallway, MacLeod thought that his friend was even more closed off to him than he’d been on their initial meeting.

It was all protective armor, Mac recognized, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. 

Methos moved silently aside and MacLeod stepped in. 

He paused in the vestibule to hang his coat on the peg by the door, then followed his retreating lover deeper into the apartment. He was hit instantly with the funereal mood of the flat. Nothing was out of place or missing in the deep shadows of the open loft that MacLeod could see, but the apartment definitely had the feel of a house in mourning. Of course, that could have to do with the fact that there wasn’t a single light on in the place.

Once he was in the living room proper, he looked for a seat. The wooden throne against the wall was so uncomfortable it might as well have been a rock and the leopard skin sofa wasn’t much better. So, he stood and waited for Methos to make the decision as to where they’d talk.

Methos didn’t go anywhere; he just stood there staring at him, faced off like that morning they’d met in the Luxemburg Gardens. The blue backlighting gave a strange, sickly pallor to his angular face.

MacLeod’s gaze couldn’t help but survey the slender figure poised before him. He saw his friend in such a different light these days. When they’d first met, MacLeod had made the mistake of thinking the man thin and bony, an aesthetic scholar, a total non-threat, someone in Darius’ league – it was an impression the ancient Immortal worked to foster, Mac knew now, just as he knew how deceptive that inoffensive front was. 

Methos might very well have been in Darius’ league, but not the Darius MacLeod had known. It might have been three-thousand years since Methos had worn the persona of Death, but the character traits that had brought the world to its knees would never vanish entirely. Both the mental and physical hardness needed to sport such a lifestyle were still there beneath Methos’ mild-mannered veneer. Methos simply chose not to walk that path any longer. 

Looking at his friend now, it was hard to imagine he ever had been such a threat. There was such an air of innocence and bookishness about Methos that it was difficult to see him as anything other than the scholarly Adam Pierson most times, even for those like MacLeod who had cause to know better these days. Though his friend was pricklier than a cactus in the moral debates they often had, Methos was the least aggressive male Immortal MacLeod had ever encountered. So often, MacLeod had the impression that the ancient Immortal had risen above the violence of the Game, then Methos would turn around and make a blood-thirsty suggestion as to how to handle a current problem that would stop MacLeod cold. For a long time, the Highlander had thought his friend jesting at such times, but since Bordeaux, he’d learned to recognize that it was just Methos’ way of offering an entirely different spin on a problem, showing MacLeod a course he could follow, if he had the stomach for it.

Even now, Mac wasn’t sure how deeply the man who’d been Death was buried. He wasn’t child enough to accept that Death was gone completely. Methos had warned him himself that that savage conqueror was still lurking somewhere deep inside him. And, yet, the Methos standing before him seemed utterly harmless, no more than the grad student, scholar, and Watcher he’d been for so many years.

The really bewildering part of the whole thing was that every front Methos presented to the world was equally true. He’d been killer, rapist, and destroyer, as well as healer, academic and staunch friend.

There were so many layers to this man, so many disguises that sometimes MacLeod wasn’t even sure whom he was with. All he knew was that there hadn’t been a single aspect of his companion’s character that hadn’t proven itself devoted to MacLeod. Even the Methos who had bowed to Kronos last year had risked that psychopath’s wrath on the Highlander’s behalf.

So, he stared at his lover now, trying to distinguish which Methos he was dealing with here. The mask his companion was wearing tonight was hard enough to have been the Horseman, Death. It was the ultimate poker face. Anything at all could have been hiding behind it, from murderous jealous rage to heartbroken despair.

His gaze roved that trim figure. Amused, MacLeod realized that Methos had borrowed one of his own shirts this morning, an ash-gray Henley he hadn’t worn since before Tessa’s death. Methos was practically swimming in the oversized top. 

The loose clothes were another deliberate ruse, Mac knew. Methos was forever hiding himself in baggy sweaters to disguise the sculpted musculature of a warrior’s body that had fought and won challenges for ages. Tonight’s outfit was Methos’ usual camouflage. The black cords were tight enough to reveal how slender those long legs were, but that loose gray Henley hid Methos’ shoulders and chest, so that an opponent might believe the mild mannered scholar image long enough to give Methos that essential element of surprise. 

MacLeod took in the trim figure, trying to keep a proper perspective, but his reactions to this man were forever changed. His response to Methos was purely physical these days. Even the baggy, concealing shirt made his pulse skip into hyperdrive. 

Still, attractive as his subdued lover was, something wasn’t quite right, he realized. Methos looked perfectly normal, and yet, something was off. Staring at Methos, Mac tried to decide what was wrong with the picture. It was only as Methos’ arms rose to defensively hug his own chest that MacLeod realized that the other man was unarmed. 

“Where’s your sword?” Mac blurted out, worried. Like his own, Methos’ weapon was rarely out of reach.

“I didn’t think I’d need it with you. Shall I run and fetch it?”

“Very funny,” Mac answered, unnerved by the serious note beneath the sarcasm.

“I wasn’t expecting you tonight,” Methos said, no doubt trying for nonchalant, but sounding dead. He looked like he didn’t have a clue as to what to say.

MacLeod could sympathize.

Mac just stared wordlessly for a moment, unsure where to go with this. It was always so hard between them, the emotions so raw. For every concession and show of trust Methos gave him, he seemed to retreat two steps back afterward, like a wary stray. If they took any more steps back tonight, there was every chance this new aspect of their relationship would perish.

And MacLeod didn’t want that. He didn’t understand half of what pulled him to this man’s side, but it was one of the strongest, most fulfilling bonds he’d ever encountered. Yet, the words always came hard. To both of them.

It didn’t help that Methos probably had a blood alcohol content at the moment that would kill most mortals. Methos held his liquor well, but Mac, who was intimately acquainted with every nuance of this man’s bearing and physique, could see that his lover had been drinking – a lot.

“I thought we had plans,” MacLeod said, careful to keep all accusation out of his tone.

“Yes, well, plans change.” Methos’ eyes dropped to the carpet. “I appreciate your coming here, Mac. I know what you’re going to say….”

The other Immortal wasn’t even slurring his words; though MacLeod could see how carefully his companion was working to string his thoughts together. Methos still had that near perfect diction. The deep timbre of his cultured voice did things to MacLeod’s insides that they shouldn’t be doing during what basically amounted to an argument.

“You know what I want to say, do you? You wouldn’t want to clue me in, would you, since you seem to know the script so well.”

Methos winced at the cold sarcasm MacLeod couldn’t keep out of his voice. MacLeod’s temper was rising at how he’d been tried and judged before all the facts were known. Methos wasn’t even giving him an opportunity to explain….

Just like someone else in this room had done not so very long ago, his conscience reminded.

It was only as he experienced that enraging sense of unfairness that Mac began to get a taste of what his lover must have gone through after Bordeaux when MacLeod was too angry to even try to associate with Methos after how bitterly he’d been disappointed over the entire Kronos affair. Turnabout was fair play, he supposed, but it still hurt like hell. The guilt raised by this new insight into what he’d put Methos through helped him tone the irritation down some.

He reminded himself that Methos wasn’t being difficult to annoy him. Even though Methos wouldn’t look him straight in the eye right now, he could see how the other man was bleeding over this.

“You don’t do threesomes,” Methos stated in answer to MacLeod’s demand about wanting to be let in on the script, sounding as though that kind of compromise were the best he could have hoped for in this situation.

_So little faith…._

“No,” Mac agreed, “I don’t.”

“So, you don’t have to explain anything to me. I’m old enough to--”

“I didn’t come here to explain,” Mac interrupted, hating that distanced blankness in Methos’ usually expressive face. “I came to apologize. You never should have been put in that position.”

Though Methos’ head was still bent, MacLeod saw his eyes squeeze tightly shut, as though the gentle words had somehow hurt him. “What are you saying, MacLeod?”

Methos’ body was completely still, aside from a slight swaying that was no doubt the result of the alcohol he’d imbibed. It seemed as though every fiber of his being were concentrated upon MacLeod’s reply. And it looked as though this conversation was killing him slowly.

Recognizing how unconsciously cruel he was being, MacLeod delivered the most important fact first, “Amanda’s gone.”

“Gone?” Methos repeated, sounding as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

“Yes.”

For the first time since he’d entered the apartment, Methos looked him directly in the eye. “You…told her to leave…because of _me_?”

His lover’s utter incredulity nearly broke his heart. MacLeod had been inside this man’s body every night for the past five and a half weeks, yet Methos was standing there acting like he had no claims on MacLeod at all. 

Mac’s throat clenched tight when he saw that those green and gold-flecked hazel eyes he so adored were extra-bright. Methos wasn’t crying, thank God, but he was damn close to it. And MacLeod hated himself for putting Methos in this position. He’d promised himself the night Methos had trusted him with the dark secrets of his childhood that he would never add to this man’s pain.

Mac tried to tell himself that it was the booze. Drink always brought the emotions that much closer to the surface, for all that people drank to numb themselves. But the alcohol couldn’t be blamed entirely. The liquor had only revealed something Methos would have hidden when sober. 

“Yes,” he answered Methos’ question about asking Amanda to leave on his behalf, barely able to force the word past his tight throat.

There was no sense of either belief or relief in Methos’ features. MacLeod could see in every portion of the long, impishly handsome face that his friend still thought his case hopeless, that Methos fully believed that he didn’t have a chance of winning if it came to a choice between him and Amanda. And after everything Methos had given him these past weeks, the man should have had some clue as to his importance to MacLeod. Even if there were some lingering doubt, Methos should have had some confidence in him.

But as Joe said, should haves and could haves were irrelevant. MacLeod had to work with what was, and what he had was a complete lack of faith on his lover’s part. 

Methos’ shocked “Why?” seemed to escape his slender lips without conscious volition. 

Mac could see that the candor was instantly regretted. “What do you mean _why_? I’ve told you how I feel about you--”

Methos cut in, his voice sharp and hard as a diamond-edged glasscutter. “Do you seriously expect me to believe that what I have to offer you is more appealing than the charms of a woman you have been addicted to for over three-hundred years? Give me some credit, Highlander.”

“I would, if you were using your brain. I’m here, with you-”

“Because your honor wouldn’t allow you to give into your true inclinations?” Methos suggested, the words a little wobbly from drink, but perfectly understandable for all of that. The contempt his friend managed to pack into the word honor set MacLeod’s teeth on edge.

Wanting to explode, Mac took a deep breath and slowly released it. “No, I’m here because this is where I want to be.”

“Right,” Methos practically sneered.

“Why is that so hard to believe?” Mac questioned, totally lost here. In four-hundred years, he’d never known anyone this contrary, anyone who could give so much of themselves to him and then behave as though that gift were worthless.

In the back of his mind, he seemed to hear Joe Dawson’s voice telling him that it was his own worthiness that Methos doubted. And while his temper wanted him to cut through this for the nonsense it was, MacLeod finally apprehended the gist of what he was up against here. 

“I know how much you care about Amanda,” Methos answered. He didn’t sound angry or resentful of that fact, just resigned.

“I care about her. I won’t deny it. She has made me laugh at times in my life when there seemed to be no joy left in the world. But I care about you, too, in a different way,” MacLeod clarified, not wanting Methos to think himself in the same on again-off again category that Amanda fell into. From the first time he’d touched Methos’ hand that night he’d taken Byron’s Quickening, MacLeod had known he was playing with fire here. This irritating man moved him the same way Tessa and Little Deer used to, down to the very fiber of his being. 

Despite his care, MacLeod’s words were taken completely wrong. 

“I can’t compete with three-hundred years worth of history,” Methos stated in a hoarse whisper.

“No one’s asking you to. This isn’t a competition, Methos.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” Mac answered.

“Why would you choose me over her? How can you expect me to believe that? It…makes no sense,” Methos said.

“You’re over five-thousand years old. Does love ever make sense?” MacLeod challenged. Those changeable eyes were watching him as though he’d taken complete leave of his senses. “Please, let’s not play it this way? Listen to me, please?” The pain in his entreaty seemed to penetrate some of that millennia old armor. 

Looking as though he were committing the gravest of errors, Methos nodded, “I’m listening.” As if reading MacLeod’s confusion over where to start, Methos reminded, “You were about to try to convince me as to how a six-week-long liaison could somehow take precedence over one of the longest love affairs on record.”

“You’re not making this easy…” MacLeod began.

Methos shrugged, as if supremely unconcerned with MacLeod’s discomfort. “Deal. Or leave. You know where the door is.”

There were times MacLeod was sorely tempted to pull his katana out and slice off the other man’s vicious tongue. Only the knowledge that such an amputation would be all but permanent stopped his hand. 

Taking a deep breath, MacLeod resolved to try again. 

“I will not leave you, not until there’s no hope left for us.” That got through to his Methos, the man who hid behind all these prickly defenses. He could see Methos’ Adam’s apple bob helplessly, almost feel the sudden tension that had claimed the spare form. There were times when MacLeod was almost convinced that kindness hurt his lover more than brutality did. 

It took a long moment, but Methos finally found his voice, “Have a care, Highlander. Reckless vows sow the seeds of regret.”

_One of a thousand regrets_ …MacLeod seemed to hear the bleak words echo through the strangely lit flat. The room was like its owner, shadow and light twisted in a bewildering tangle, old and new losses as heavy in the air as the fog had been in that Bordeaux churchyard the morning after Armageddon.

“I am not going to be your thousandth and one regret, Methos,” he swore. Seeing the already pale face blanch even further, MacLeod quietly challenged, “Do you really want to know why I want to be here? Or do you want to go on arguing in circles the way we have been?” Taking his lover’s continued silence and the sharpening of Methos’ gaze upon him as assent, MacLeod gulped down a deep breath and bared his soul to this man who had been Death and so much more throughout the long ages, “The fact that you have set my very blood on fire with the things you’ve done to me these past weeks aside, I’m here because I…need you.”

Stated so bluntly, the words seemed almost trite, for all that they were true. 

“Need me?” That appeared to be another concept Methos had difficulty understanding. Those gold-specked eyes were regarding him as though he were completely insane. And, perhaps he was. Of all the relationships he’d had in his life, this one made the least sense. Yet, it was incontestably one of, if not the, strongest. No matter where this might lead them or how badly it might end, Mac just couldn’t give it up. Not now…maybe not ever.

“Yes. Why is that so impossible to believe?” MacLeod asked, not to be difficult, but to understand.

“You’re the most self-sufficient man I ever met,” Methos answered. “I’ve got nothing unique to offer you….”

“Nothing unique? My God, man, everything about you is special.” Seeing that he had his lover’s undivided, if skeptical, attention, MacLeod tried to speak his heart, “Methos, you and I, we’re good at surviving. Self-sufficiency is a trait we both share, but that doesn’t mean we prefer it that way. I…don’t want to be alone anymore.”

“Amanda’s companionship has suited you for centuries….”

MacLeod sighed, recognizing that he was going to have to lay it all on the line here. “Yes, her companionship is wonderful, while it lasts.”

Methos wasn’t so drunk that the qualification escaped his notice. “What do you mean _while it lasts_? It has lasted several centuries. Even for our kind, that’s an impressive history. You have loved Amanda longer than the Valicourts have been married. In the entire Watchers’ Chronicles, there are only two Immortal love affairs that have lasted longer than yours and Amanda’s.”

Put that way, Methos’ concerns no longer seemed so unsubstantiated.

“Yes, Amanda and I have been falling in and out of bed for several centuries. I won’t deny that she’s in my blood--”

“MacLeod, how can you refuse something like that? Why would you even want to?”

“Because a couple of weeks of teeth rattling sex every year or so isn’t enough, Methos. I have…great respect and regard for Amanda, but life is one unending party for her. When things get too real, she can’t handle it. She tries, but constancy bores her to tears.”

His words seemed to take Methos by surprise. After a pensive silence, the other man challenged, “What makes you think I’m any better?”

“Aside from the fact that we’ve barely set foot off the barge in a month and you haven’t seemed bored even once?” Mac asked. “I know because you’ve proven it to me.”

“Proven it?” Methos sounded utterly bewildered.

“Yes.”

“How?” Methos wasn’t just fishing for compliments. Duncan could see that his lover hadn’t a single clue as to how important his presence in the Highlander’s life these past three and a half years had been. 

And how could he, Mac reflected, remembering how many times he’d scorned Methos after Bordeaux, how quick he’d been to turn his back on the man over incidents that had happened three-thousand years before he was even born. In retrospect, his anger seemed more like cruelty than a justified response. If Methos had doubts, MacLeod knew he was the one who had put them there. Now he had to find a way to make it up to his friend, to make Methos believe fundamental truths that no lover should be questioning six weeks into a relationship.

“You’ve proven it by your…constancy,” Mac smiled as he used the word he’d described Amanda running from.

“I’ve been accused of many things in my time, MacLeod. Constancy was never among them.”

“No? Well, think about it. Where were you the night Ingrid Henning died? Where did you spend your nights when you returned from Greece after Alexa died?”

“It was you who did the comforting then, Mac,” Methos interjected, no longer sounding so defensive.

MacLeod hoped his friend saw it that way, but he knew it wasn’t true. Methos hadn’t broken down once in his company after Alexa’s death. MacLeod had hoped that his suffering friend would have shared his grief, but Methos had kept his pain to himself.

“No, I was too messed up to be of any use to you. Remember, those were the weeks after I violated my honor by assassinating Reza.”

Some of the shuttered distance left Methos’ face as he softly interjected, “Honor only works when both parties are bound by its precepts, MacLeod. Killing Reza was no different than killing any of the other monsters you’ve put down.”

He’d heard that same argument from Methos at least a thousand times after his friend’s return from Greece after Alexa’s death.

“At any rate, I was…a basket case back then. You talked me through three months worth of sleepless nights. I would’ve gone insane if not for you.”

“Funny, that’s exactly how I felt about those nights,” Methos offered almost hesitantly.

MacLeod felt a little of his panic recede at Methos’ words. Feeling as if he were standing on firmer ground, he continued with, “And where were you during those days of the Dark Quickening when I was rampaging through France like a one man Psychos R Us?” Mac softly questioned. “I’ll tell you where you were, right beside me, pulling me through it. Where was Amanda on any of those occasions?”

To MacLeod’s shock, Methos actually tried to defend Amanda, pointing out in that quiet voice that made him shiver, “Mac, you can’t make that kind of judgment. She didn’t know. She wasn’t there--”

“That’s right. Amanda wasn’t there. Understand, Methos, I love her and always will, but…I can’t depend upon her. The moment life gets rough, Amanda has to leave.”

“I’ve left, too, Mac,” Methos reminded.

“But not when I was bleeding, not when I needed you there. You left….” In retrospect, he realized that Methos seemed to take a walkabout every time MacLeod’s relationship with Amanda or another woman became hot and heavy, “You left when it got too painful for you to stay, didn’t you?”

His face white as chalk, Methos gave a guarded nod, as if even by admitting to that, he was revealing too much.

“I’ve hurt you so much…” MacLeod shook his head, wondering how Methos could want to be with him after his own ignorance and more recent, calculated misbehavior. 

And it was there in Methos’ eyes that MacLeod was hurting him again, right now. Only, this time he could do something to assuage those wounds. That pain drew him like a magnet.

MacLeod stepped forward, half-expecting the other man to back away, but Methos stood firm, if slightly listing back and forth from drink. Mac tentatively placed his palms on the warm gray cotton covering Methos’ biceps, unsure if he even had the right to touch this way after Amanda’s arrival, but Methos didn’t flinch away from him.

Instead, the slightly taller man seemed to melt into MacLeod’s arms.

MacLeod buried his nose in the soft hair on top of Methos’ head as his lover pressed his face into the cobalt silk covering Mac’s chest as MacLeod’s arms hugged the slender frame tight. He was grateful that Methos could still trust him this far. 

It was then that he felt how violently Methos was shaking, trembling like a man who’d been trapped in an arctic ice cave or another place where there could be no rest or solace found. 

MacLeod rubbed the slender back, wishing that he could find the words that would offer Methos the reassurance he needed. But he was beginning to suspect that the words didn’t exist. This ancient Immortal had heard every vow known to man, in every language ever spoken, no doubt. There wasn’t anything he could say that Methos hadn’t been lied to about.

Not for the first time, MacLeod was nearly cowed by the obstacles he had to overcome here. In every relationship, there were always barriers to conquer, old scars that had never healed, bad experiences through which the current relationship was filtered. Mac had had his share of insecure lovers, women whose pasts had led them to suspect his intentions and trustability. But Methos was the first he’d had who didn’t just fear betrayal, but expected it as a matter of course. 

Mac didn’t like to consider the type of experiences that forged that level of suspicion and cynicism. What little Methos had revealed about his childhood had left MacLeod amazed that his friend could accord anyone even the semblance of trust. Nothing he’d learned of Methos’ past had led him to believe that his lover had ever had an easy time of it. 

He remembered the night this had all started, that heart-breaking line Methos had given him about how in five-thousand years of life, his love affairs had never once been about what Methos wanted. At the time, MacLeod had thought the claim an exaggeration, but as he stood here feeling the raw desperation in his partner’s embrace, MacLeod began to understand what Methos had meant. Methos hadn’t been talking about sexual gratification, as the Highlander had thought that night. It was more complex than that.

Methos wanted something he could never bring himself to ask for, perhaps something the oldest Immortal was too emotionally damaged to offer himself in return, but needed all the same. Instinctively, MacLeod began to understand what Methos longed for. It was this, emotional closeness with someone who loved and trusted him, in spite of his past. 

MacLeod could make a thousand vows and tell Methos that he loved him every day, and it would be meaningless to Methos, because nothing else the former Horseman had known had ever survived the test of time.

And maybe Methos was right in his caution. Six weeks was nothing in the lifespan of an Immortal. It wasn’t time enough for MacLeod himself to fully understand what pulled him to this man, and certainly not time enough to convince this emotionally scarred survivor that MacLeod was any different from the plethora of love affairs that had gone sour on him.

All he could do was be here, letting his presence provide the assurance. 

MacLeod wasn’t used to thinking like this. If he saw a problem, his instinct was to fix it immediately. If someone was hurting, he had to offer comfort. The idea that he could be so close to someone and yet be powerless to reassure was utterly foreign. And yet, now that he’d stopped talking to Methos and was simply allowing touch to communicate, his lover seemed to have calmed remarkably, as if even Methos wasn’t able to deny what was between them when they were in physical contact. 

Mac would have preferred to convince his lover of his intentions, but that was obviously not an option here. MacLeod realized that he could talk them both into the ground and Methos would still be as riddled with doubt as he was at the onset of their discussion. So this was how it was going to have to be for a while. Show, not tell. Snuggling deeper into the embrace, Mac thought he could live with that.

His acceptance of his limitations seemed to lift a tremendous burden from his heart. 

For a long time he simply stood there, holding Methos close, breathing in the warm reality of the man, stroking him until the shudders he’d noticed when Methos first came into his arms faded. 

Everything about their loving was so primal. It seemed to hit them both on such an instinctive level that all the buffering experience they’d accumulated over the years was useless here. There was no stepping back from these feelings, no moderating them.

The intensity of the sex, Mac had expected after that first unbelievable night. But all these other emotions, while not new to him, were surprising in this venue. Over the years, MacLeod had had numerous Immortal lovers. As much as he’d cared for them all, there was always some part of them that held back from him, as though they all understood on an unspoken level that there were just some things that two players in the Game simply couldn’t share with each other. Mac had never believed that to be true, but no matter how hard he tried, love with another Immortal just never seemed to run as deep as it did when he was involved with a mortal. Until Methos, which made no sense, he knew. Methos had more emotional barricades than any Immortal MacLeod had met, yet the feelings Methos had for him seemed to circumvent even those impressive shields. 

Mac knew that from the outside, he and Methos could not be more different. Their personalities were opposite poles of the spectrum and, yet, when they cut through all the superficial exterior differences, inside, he and Methos were alike. They needed the same things.

For all his lover’s claims of having no fire left inside him, Methos was one of the most passionate men MacLeod had ever met. While it was true that his friend presented a near flawless outer reserve to the world, Mac had learnt, and continued to discover with every new day, that what went on inside Methos was a very different story. Like what they were doing now. To look at this droll, self-sufficient man, one would never suspect that he would crave this kind of simple contact, but when MacLeod thought of their relationship in the quiet moments of the day, it was embraces like this that typified it in his thoughts, rather than the mind-blowing sex.

Twenty minutes must have passed while they just held onto each other without a single kiss being exchanged before Methos yawned, his lax muscles going almost limp as he trusted the majority of his weight to MacLeod’s keeping. 

His companion was out on his feet, the Highlander recognized, exhausted himself from the emotions they’d unleashed with their latest argument.

“Bed?” Mac suggested, mouthing the word into the pink shell of his lover’s ear, feeling the resultant shiver quake through the long frame. The ends of Methos’ spiky hair were soft, but scratchy against his cheek.

“Mmmm…bright boy,” Methos agreed. 

Mac could tell that Methos was trying to sound his usual, superior self, but the attempt fell flat, a brittle imitation that convinced neither of them.

MacLeod offered what he hoped was an encouraging squeeze and guided them towards the sleeping alcove.

They parted only far enough to disrobe. 

Standing beside the bed to undress, MacLeod stared up at the truncated sculpture at the head of the frameless box spring and mattress. He never knew if it was his lover’s overpowering Immortal presence or the antiquity of the piece, but this room always felt almost haunted to MacLeod. He wasn’t normally given to such fancies, but he couldn’t help his reaction to the curious and somewhat grotesque furnishings of the flat. 

They didn’t spend much time at Methos’ place, so MacLeod never had a chance to really adjust to the surroundings. Mac had wondered if their always being at the barge bothered his lover, but every time he’d suggested they come over here, Methos had made it plain that he preferred being at MacLeod’s. Territory was such a funny thing, especially with male Immortals, that MacLeod had never wanted to push the issue. Some of their kind didn’t like having other Immortals anywhere near their home turf; yet, on the very first day they’d met, Methos had told him his home was MacLeod’s home, so why Methos didn’t want them to spend time here together now was a complete mystery to him. It was just another of the many quirks he didn’t understand about his ancient companion.

Forcing his gaze from the disturbing sculpture, MacLeod quickly removed his clothes, a little surprised that Methos wasn’t helping him along already. He’d thought he was an expert at undressing quickly, but Methos could strip faster than a twenty-dollar hooker. 

But tonight, the naked Mac found his partner just untucking his undershirt from his jeans. MacLeod couldn’t help but notice how slow and disjointed Methos’ movements were. There was almost a reluctance to the way those slender fingered hands were moving. 

MacLeod winced as he saw how Methos seemed to force himself to move faster when he found himself under observation, still without his usual grace.

“Are you all right?” MacLeod questioned, easing himself under the bedclothes. It was his imagination of course, but the sheets in this bed that they hadn’t slept in since their first night together felt colder against his skin than those at the barge ever did.

“Fine.”

He heard the lie, but let it pass, waiting until Methos slid into the low bed beside him.

Normally, the moment they were both horizontal, they were epoxied together, neither of them ever seeming to make the first move, just instant clinch. Tonight was different. The entire feel of the atmosphere between them was…strange, not quite strained, but so far from their usual relaxed combustibility that Mac almost felt like this were a first time again.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he asked of the quiet man mere inches from him, almost feeling as though he needed permission to touch.

Methos sighed. “They’re not worth that much.”

Not liking the impasse, MacLeod reached out, ruffling the hair on his lover’s nearby forearm. Relieved, he saw Methos’ shiver in reaction. Whatever the problem was, it didn’t seem to be huge enough to affect the chemistry between them.

“You not in the mood tonight?” Mac asked gently, hoping he wasn’t pushing too hard. It had never happened before, but considering how much liquor MacLeod suspected his friend had put away before his arrival, it would hardly be unreasonable if Methos weren’t up to their usual love play.

“It’s not that. I just….”

“Yes?” Mac prompted, turning onto his side to face Methos, his head pillowed on his right elbow, his left arm tentatively settling over Methos’ smooth chest.

Methos didn’t freeze up or anything, but something in his eyes made Mac think that his friend had just done the emotional equivalent. 

“I can’t take this in stride, MacLeod. I’m trying, but….”

Though his stomach tensed up at how troubled Methos seemed, MacLeod took some comfort in the fact that the words didn’t seem to be leading to a goodbye. Or so he hoped.

“Trying is all anyone can ask,” Mac attempted to reassure. “You’re doing fine.”

“No,” Methos shook his head, “I’m not.”

Biting his lip, MacLeod held very still, waiting to hear whatever Methos might say next. He was about to pull back and give Methos some breathing room when the older Immortal seemed ready to do it for him. Methos lifted MacLeod’s hand from where it lay flat against Methos’ ribs, as if to push him away. 

But Methos didn’t push him off. Instead, while Methos’ left hand supported it, Methos’ right index finger played along MacLeod’s palm tracing the lifeline there. The hardness of the tip of the smooth fingernail moving over that ultra-sensitive skin made MacLeod shiver.

“Is this your way of saying that you would have preferred me to stay with Amanda tonight?” Mac asked, voicing a possibility he hadn’t even considered. Maybe he was getting too close for Methos’ peace of mind and the other man needed some room.

Methos gave a slow shake of his head. “It’s not that easy.”

“You could tell me what I’m doing wrong. You never used to be shy about pointing out my shortcomings,” Mac tried for lightness, though the pain gripping his insides felt like it would crush him to a pulp.

“Wrong? That’s just the problem. You haven’t made a wrong move yet.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” MacLeod couldn’t quite keep his confusion from flavoring his words.

Methos slowly shook his head. “No, not bad, only inexplicable. I thought the novelty factor of a homosexual affair would have worn off for you by now, but everyday you show me that what we’re doing here isn’t about experimentation.”

MacLeod’s anger at the suggestion died unvoiced when he realized that Methos had just ruled the possibility out. “And?”

“What it is about…is beyond me,” Methos whispered.

“You’re feeling trapped,” Mac said, hoping that he wasn’t revealing half of what was going through him. This was a slightly more refined version of the same scene he’d played out with Amanda a million times. He’d just start to relax into the relationship, and she’d need to be on a plane to Aruba the next day. Cringing inside, he wondered where Methos would fly off to, how much of a comfort zone his new lover was going to need to put between himself and MacLeod before Methos could relax.

Methos snorted. “Wrong again.”

“So what are you saying?” MacLeod snapped, closing his fist to stop the distracting fingering of his palm.

But Methos wouldn’t let him withdraw. Methos took hold of his clenched hand and gently pried it open. Even though Mac didn’t want to give in so easily, he couldn’t resist further without making a ridiculous show of it, which he was curiously reluctant to do, despite being hurt. It was almost as though he were incapable of turning away from any effort Methos made to get closer to him. 

He was so sensitized to the other man now that MacLeod could tell that Methos was fully aware of the struggle he was going through. He hated being this transparent, especially with someone as strong as Methos, but that was part of the deal. You couldn’t open your heart to love, without opening it to hurt as well.

However, Methos didn’t take advantage of his weakness. Instead of commenting or capitalizing on it, Methos lifted Mac’s hand to his lips and deposited a light kiss on the Highlander’s calloused knuckles. There was a reverent quality to the gesture that was entirely at odds with the brush off MacLeod thought was going on here.

Lifting his head, Methos simply stared at him for a long moment before making any kind of reply. Instead of answering straight out, Methos took one of the roundabout courses that he always seemed more comfortable with and said, “There are patterns in life that repeat themselves time and again, MacLeod. You’ve lived long enough to know what I’m talking about.”

Mac nodded his understanding.

Licking his lips, Methos continued, “I, ah, am intimately acquainted with all the possible transmutations that most affairs of the heart can take, except this one. Tonight I was certain that it would follow a course that, while painful, was excruciatingly familiar. There was a certain…masochistic comfort in that. But now….”

“Yes?” 

“You’ve turned five-thousand years of experience on its proverbial ear,” the humor in Methos’ attitude was forced and brittle. Mac recognized the tone, that studied calm that told him it was taking everything Methos had to hold it together right now. “It…isn’t easy to stare redemption in the face. Please, just…have patience with me. I can’t take this lightly, not yet.”

Mac gulped, barely able to breathe around the lump of emotion this man had put in his throat, let alone speak. It was two tries before he could find his voice to answer. When he was able to make the words, they sounded gruff and raspy to even his own ears. “You see what we’re doing as your redemption?”

Methos’ face quirked in a somehow self-deprecating and self-mocking manner as he gave a slow nod of assent. “That’s how it feels, MacLeod, melodramatic as that may sound.”

This time it was MacLeod who squeezed his eyes closed. All he’d done was love the man, the way he’d tried to love every other lover in his life, and Methos thought him his redemption? It was humbling and almost incomprehensibly moving.

“It’s not melodramatic,” MacLeod said at last.

It was so hard for them to be this open, this vulnerable to one another. He could see how intensely uncomfortable Methos was at the moment. This man had ruled the world when it was young. When you wielded that kind of power, you learned never to show weakness, to anyone. Even after three-thousand years of civilized living, those habits were hard to break. And beyond that, it was never easy to appear less than strong in the eyes of another man. 

He couldn’t stand seeing Methos agonize over this. MacLeod had had so many relationships where personalities, needs, and motivations clashed that the unexpected joy he had found with Methos these past few weeks was like a breath of fresh air. Though they were constantly debating, they didn’t fight over the small stuff or the important issues; Methos didn’t push him for anything he didn’t openly offer, be it confidences or caresses. They were…simpatico. It wasn’t right that Methos should feel so off balance because he’d let MacLeod know how important he was to him.

Knowing only one way to assuage his lover’s wounded pride, Mac quietly offered, “You’re not the only one overwhelmed here, you know.”

Methos tilted his head ever so slightly to the side, his brows arching a little, his features turning openly encouraging and, in the space of a heartbeat, MacLeod found himself looking at Adam Pierson, the grave, wary warrior of seconds ago completely gone. As ever, Mac didn’t know which one was real. All he knew was that he was glad to be dealing with the mild-mannered Watcher and not Death. He could say what he wanted to say to Adam, for all that the entire Adam Pierson persona might be a sham.

“What do you mean?” Methos asked.

“The way you feel about the…emotional ground; that’s how I feel about the sex sometimes,” MacLeod confessed, still not sure he wanted to go here, but unwilling to leave Methos feeling like he was the only one swimming upstream.

That got Methos’ attention. “In what way?”

Mac blinked, too surprised to hide it. How could Methos not know what he was talking about? Every time he was with Methos, he felt as though his lack of experience with other men was tattooed on his forehead, for all that the chemistry was unbelievable.

They were like fire and gasoline, put them anywhere near each other and it was instant combustion. While MacLeod had enjoyed any number of whirlwind romances, not a one had been like this. Most times, MacLeod had centuries of experience over the women he was sleeping with. Even with Amanda, things were wild, but there was a certain…predictability to the final outcome. 

That wasn’t the case with Methos. Each time they touched, it was a sensual odyssey that left MacLeod shaken and breathless. He did things with this man on a nightly basis that, the mere thought of which, had always left MacLeod slightly queasy in the past. His inhibitions and cultural hang-ups were pushed to the limit on a daily basis now. Yet, for all their convention breaking, there was still one major exemption to their repertoire which Methos had never sought to introduce, even though it was something he gave MacLeod almost every night. Not once in all the time they were together had Methos attempted to take the dominant role in bed. 

At first Mac had been relieved, but now…his sense of fair play was demanding he address the issue, for all that the thought of it still made his stomach do flip flops.

Swallowing hard, Mac tried to explain, without sounding an idiot, “I sometimes feel like I’m playing out of my league with you.”

“You what?” Methos looked stunned.

“You’ve got five millennia of experience behind you. There’s nothing I can give you that you haven’t had a thousand times before from more skilled partners. I realize that I’m still…bumbling through half of what we do together in bed,” he tried to ignore the heat in his cheeks as he plowed on, “Every day, I keep waiting for you to get tired of…coaxing the kid in Remedial Sex 101 and move on to more exciting action--”

“Mac, if the action were any more exciting here, I’d be dead,” Methos interrupted, sounding almost his droll self at the moment, for all that that uneasy light was still sparking in his eyes.

His own voice sharpening, MacLeod reminded, “I thought we agreed that we would have honesty between us.”

“That is the truth,” Methos protested, looking and sounding like he meant the words.

How he could, Mac didn’t know. He was well aware of his major failing here, even if Methos had never mentioned or even hinted that there was a problem.

Feeling the heat in his face, he stumblingly laid it on the line, leaving himself as open and vulnerable as Methos had earlier. It hurt like hell, but it evened the playing field, gave Methos back a bit of his own. “I know I haven’t…been man enough to give you what you need….” 

“Not man enough? Take my word on this, it doesn’t get any more Alpha than you,” Methos sounded his old self again, and supremely amused by McLeod’s suggestion.

“That’s just the problem, isn’t it?” his honor made him persevere. “I haven’t been exactly…equally accommodating….”

Methos had that expression he sometimes got when MacLeod tried to explain a moral stance that seemed incomprehensible to the older Immortal. “What are we talking about here?”

Temporarily distracted, MacLeod watched Methos place MacLeod’s hand back on Methos’ chest, that long-fingered hand covering his own and holding it in place there.

“Mac?” Methos prompted, obviously waiting on an answer.

MacLeod reminded himself that he was over four-hundred years old. He was sophisticated enough to have this kind of conversation. But, to mix metaphors, at moments like this, he always felt like the uncouth Highland barbarian that Kristen had smoothed into a silk purse. And somehow, Methos’ knowing eyes always made him feel that much more the fumbling bumpkin.

“Every night you’ve given me…a gift I haven’t had the spine to offer in return….”

“Please tell me that we’re not having a ‘who’s on top’ conversation here,” Methos pleaded.

Feeling all the more a fool, MacLeod asked, “Why?”

“Why what?” Methos sounded lightly exasperated, and totally exhausted.

“Why wouldn’t you have wanted to have that conversation six weeks ago?” 

That’s what MacLeod had really been unable to comprehend, how Methos could keep giving himself to him every night without once asking MacLeod to return the favor.

Methos sighed. “Maybe because it isn’t an issue. Let’s not make it one.”

“Methos….”

“What?”

“I…don’t understand,” Mac said softly, putting no judgment in the words, just his confusion.

“There’s nothing _to_ understand, Mac.”

“But…don’t you…fancy my…bum?” the ridiculous euphemism was the only way MacLeod could ask that particular question at all.

“MacLeod, unless it has escaped your attention, there is no part of you that I haven’t devoured. You’ve got the most luscious bum I’ve ever laid hands on. I’ll write you a sonnet about it in the morning, if you like.”

“I’m serious here, Methos,” MacLeod snapped.

“So am I. We do not need to have this conversation.”

The silence that fell between them was strained.

To MacLeod’s surprise, it was Methos who broke it. “You give me what I want. Stop worrying.”

“But…” MacLeod’s protest died as the unassuming Adam Pierson vanished and he found himself staring into eyes that seemed as old and uncaring as time itself. 

“Why are you pushing this issue?” Methos demanded. “It isn’t something you want. It’s not in your nature.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” MacLeod challenged, remembering when Methos had all but sneered those last few words at him when they were discussing Methos’ past in the Elysium church in Bordeaux when they had both slipped away from their respective partners to parley on sacred ground when Methos was trying to keep Kronos from infecting the province with a deadly epidemic without directly confronting the man.

Methos took a deep breath. “All it means is that we have different needs. That isn’t something you’ve ever wanted or even fantasized about in your life. Or are you telling me different?” Methos asked, less sharply, the rising of an inquisitive eyebrow letting Mac know that it was a concept Methos hadn’t considered before.

Damn, it was embarrassing to be so…predictable.

Mac gave a reluctant, negative shake of his head. No, he hadn’t fantasized about it. Even with Methos, the very idea still left him uneasy.

“So what is the sense of having this type of conversation?” Methos questioned with inexorable logic, strangely gentle for all that it must be a sore topic.

Feeling an utter fool, Mac offered, “I want us…we should be equals in all things.”

The sharpness was back in that suddenly remote gaze, ten-fold. There was an air of danger about Methos, a threat that MacLeod had never even sensed before, no matter how bitterly they’d argued. Although he didn’t want any contention between them, in a way, the change was reassuring. It was good to finally come up against something Methos was unwilling to accept from him. Methos’ reaction, more than anything this master of words might say, convinced him that Methos really didn’t see any disparity in their sexual roles, incomprehensible as that was to MacLeod.

“Are you telling me that you don’t think of me as your equal anymore…because of bedroom antics?” Methos demanded.

When put that way, it did sound absurd, Mac realized.

“That’s not what I--”

“Answer the question, Highlander,” Methos ordered, as quietly furious as MacLeod had ever seen him.

“Of course, we’re equals,” MacLeod clarified up front, “or as equal as anyone can ever be when dealing with someone who’s got five-thousand years of experience over them.”

The wry qualification helped. Some of the ice melted in that frosty green gaze. Mac had always thought blue eyes did cold glares best. Tessa’s had been especially effective. But never had he encountered anything more quelling than Methos’ greenish hazel eyes. The relief was almost physical when they warmed to him again.

“Then what are we quarrelling about?” Methos asked with forced patience.

“I feel like I’m…denying you your rights,” MacLeod finally found the words to vocalize the amorphous guilt that had been miring him since the first time he’d taken Methos.

Methos was regarding him as though he were more than a few cards short of a full deck. “Are we talking _droit du seigneur_ here? Though it’s true that no one is more seigneur than I, those conventions--”

The joke made him feel all the more foolish. “Methos, this is serious….”

Methos sighed, resignation settling across his features. “So I see. I just don’t understand how you can feel guilt over denying me something I never asked from you. Mac, you’re acting like being with you is some tremendous sacrifice on my part. Believe me, it’s not. And, if you will recall, it was I who initiated that particular form of contact.”

“Aye, but….”

“But what?” Methos prodded.

“You’re a man. You must want….”

All of the anger seemed to seep from Methos as he shook his head in open exasperation and said, “Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, what am I going to do with you? Yes, I am a man. The roles I play in bed with you won’t make me any more or less of one. While I admit that it hasn’t always been true of my paramours in the past, nothing we do together diminishes me on any level. Just the opposite, in fact.”

Recognizing the truth, even when he couldn’t understand it, MacLeod asked, “Really?”

“Really.” Seeming to read his need for reassurance, Methos softly continued, “You’re looking at me as though I get nothing out of our unions. I know you’re the original Boy scout – no offence intended – but I’ve also met Amanda. You’re not seriously going to suggest that a woman that worldly has failed to introduce you to some of the less mundane pleasures we’ve shared lately?”

MacLeod could feel not only his cheeks on fire, but his ears and neck as well. He was eternally grateful for Methos’ discretion. If the other man had so much as cracked a smile at that moment, MacLeod would have killed him, if he didn’t die of embarrassment first.

“Of course I’ve sampled some of what we’ve done….” he hotly replied.

“Then you know how great the enjoyment can be. Believe me, MacLeod, I am not suffering here.”

“I just….”

“I know,” the soft light in those changeable hazel eyes seemed to indicate that Methos did, indeed, understand fully, “and I appreciate what you’re trying to offer me, but the fact of the matter is, if the time were right, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You know that as well as I.”

The refusal was gentle and filled with more love than MacLeod had encountered in some instances when propositions were accepted.

MacLeod was forced to give a reluctant nod, “Aye, you’re right in that.” 

He wasn’t ready for this. They both knew it. Not that it made him feel any better to admit that he couldn’t give as good as he got.

Methos’ eyes seemed to read right through him. “Okay, let’s look at this from another angle. If you were me, would you want someone you cared for to do something that was difficult for him to stomach out of a false sense of obligation and fair play? Sacrificial lambs don’t do it for me anymore, Mac. I…need to be wanted that way.”

And once again, it was brought home to him just how wrong he’d been about Methos after Bordeaux. There was a time when the oldest Immortal wouldn’t have cared if a partner were ready or even willing. That Methos had nothing to do with the man sharing his bed; any more than the MacLeod he was now did with the one who had killed Sean Byrnes.

“You’re right…again.”

“Not right, Mac, just old – very old and weary of the games,” more than weary, Methos sounded completely empty inside, as though MacLeod’s offer had hurt him or depleted the last of his strength.

“No games between us,” he promised, “not ever.”

The tension seemed to seep from those handsome, quirky features as Methos stared up at him from the nearby pillow.

“I don’t want anything from you that you’re not doing for your own lusty gratification,” Methos explained. “I know how new all this is to you, how different it is. If some things never happen, they never happen. I can live with that, only….”

“Yes?” Mac asked, finding himself falling in love with this extraordinary man all over again.

Methos squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, leaving MacLeod to wonder about the things Methos felt he couldn’t live without.

Every one of Methos’ five-thousand years of hard, hurtful living were there in his tired face. 

His heart twisting inside his chest, Mac had no clue how he could help here. Sean Byrnes used to say that Immortals were like mortals, but that so much more was written upon their page. There wasn’t an Immortal alive that had endured as much as this scarred survivor had. How could anyone hope to lighten the emotional burdens of a man who had seen all of history play out?

As ever when faced with the scope of this challenge, MacLeod was almost paralyzed by it. Only….

Methos had called what they had his redemption. If his friend really saw it that way, then obviously MacLeod had to be doing some good, no matter how useless he felt.

Needing to offer some form of comfort, MacLeod looked inside himself and found the words Methos had offered to him at a time when he’d thought death would be his only salvation. “You’re not alone. Not anymore.”

Leaning down, MacLeod placed a gentle kiss in the center of Methos’ forehead, on the charka point the Hindus called the third eye.

Methos’ long form jerked as though the first blast of a Quickening had just hit him. Methos’ eyes snapped open to stare up at MacLeod, the turbulent emotions raging there fierce and more than a little desperate.

Mac couldn’t have resisted a kiss at that point if both their lives had depended upon it. He could taste the liquor in Methos’ kiss; vodka, he thought. Only after his own mouth bore the same harsh flavor and the residual tension in the long body beneath him began to fade did MacLeod lift his head.

“You don’t have to take it lightly. You take it any way you need to,” MacLeod whispered, referring back to Methos’ initial comment that had begun their discussion. “No matter what, we’re gonna be okay.”

For perhaps the first time, Mac saw something like belief in his lover’s gaze. It wasn’t anything clear or strong, more a shadow of hope than actual substance. Yet, it was more than he’d ever seen there in the past. Most importantly, the usual pessimism that generally greeted any attempt MacLeod made to reassure was entirely absent. 

The moment was as fragile as the trust Mac felt he was earning here, but he didn’t blow it. MacLeod could almost see his partner’s tense expectation of disaster give way to grudging acceptance. Hope seemed as alien a concept to the oldest Immortal as submission was to MacLeod, but Methos was obviously made of stronger stuff than he. For all Methos’ unavoidable pessimism, Mac could see how hard his friend was trying to believe in him.

His stomach clenching in reaction, MacLeod leaned in on Methos again. He brushed his lips over each of those time-weary features, loving this person as he had few others in his life. 

Methos closed his eyes as MacLeod kissed them in turn. 

Mac paused between them. His tongue tip traced the faint white scar between those arched eyebrows. It was right at the bridge of the nose, leading up onto the forehead. The straight mark looked like it had been made with a sword or knife. The fact that Methos still sported it said that it must have been there for over five millennia, since his mortal life. Mac realized that at one point in Methos’ existence, that scar must have been as distinctive as Kronos’ face wound had been. It was so pale now that MacLeod couldn’t even see it in this light. He knew it was there though, from the weeks he’d spent cataloging every inch of this splendid body offered to him.

He didn’t know why, but he loved kissing Methos’ face, especially his eyes. Mac took his time there, licking the salty corners, brushing across the thick, dark fan of eyelashes, then up to the salt sweet oils of the naturally arched brows. 

Venturing lower, he rubbed his stubbled chin over those impossibly high cheekbones, before finding his way back to his lover’s succulent mouth.

Even with the vodka, Methos’ taste burned through him. The whiskers on their chins scratched together as Mac drank deeply. Methos’ lips were slender, but strong and sensuous, for all their lack of girth. Mac especially loved the slightly fuller, lower lip. It was just the right size to suck on, and Methos seemed especially fond of that.

When they’d had their fill for the moment, Mac’s mouth slipped lower, kissing its way down Methos’ pointy chin. Even though he’d done this every night for six weeks, it still felt strange to encounter the five o’clock shadow that was just starting to give way to bristly stubble. Every time his tongue or lips ran into his lover’s beard growth, it still took him by surprise and he had to spend some time familiarizing himself with the new crop of hair that would perish under the razor’s blade come morning. He’d never told Methos, because neither of them seemed particularly comfortable with compliments yet, but Mac actually liked Methos a little scruffy. 

Not for the first time, he found himself wondering what his lover would look like should he grow his hair a little longer. It had been slightly longer when they first met. Mac could still recall the boyish forelock that the wind had blown across Methos’ brow that first time they’d walked together by the river. 

Why he should remember something like that after all this time, he had no clue. If he’d had a sword to his throat, he couldn’t have sworn with any accuracy how Fitz, Kit, Cullen or any of his other friends had worn their hair when he’d first met them. Hell, he couldn’t even swear to Amanda’s hairstyle, and it was understandable that he’d notice her. Wondering if it were possible that he could have been sexually attracted to Methos from their first meeting, MacLeod got back to the business at hand.

The long white stretch of Methos’ throat beckoned to him like a campfire on a dark, forest night. The skin there was so soft, so gut-wrenchingly vulnerable. Mac took his time, kissing, sucking and nibbling. There was a spot right behind and below Methos’ left ear that seemed to drive his composed friend wild.

Mac supposed that it only stood to reason that all of their kind would be especially sensitive around the neck, but the moan Methos released sounded overwhelmed, like even MacLeod’s careful nuzzling was more than he could stand. Mac licked over the milk-white perfection there, tasting the sweet skin oils as he made his way lower. 

Methos’ chest was so smooth, so well formed. Slender, yet leanly muscled -- a warrior’s body, for all that it wasn’t the form of a man who’d worn much battle armor. The shoulders were especially developed, which only stood to reason for so fine a swordsman. Mac spent a long time nipping the cool curves there before following the collarbone down.

His targets were waiting in the center of the golden brown nub that decorated each breast. He’d always enjoyed the softness and pliancy of a woman’s bosom. When he’d started loving Methos, he’d expected to be, if not put off, then disappointed by the lack of flesh on a man’s chest, but even though there was nothing there to sink his teeth into, Mac found Methos startlingly exciting all the same.

Perhaps it had something to do with the level of sensitivity. MacLeod had rarely slept with anyone as all over responsive as Methos. After five millennia, Mac would have almost understood if Methos were bored with normal caresses, if he’d needed some of the violent acts that Methos had tried to talk him into their first night together to get him off, but the oldest Immortal shook and cried out like an untouched virgin at almost anything Mac did to him.

Only lately had MacLeod begun to wonder if it weren’t the actions, but the partner that was responsible for Methos’ responsiveness. Not that Methos had left any doubt of it their first night together, but every time they had a difficult discussion like tonight’s, MacLeod was reminded anew of the regard Methos held him in, how very deeply and genuinely Methos cared for him. Mac knew love when he saw it, even if that were a word his companion avoided like the plague.

MacLeod had no clue why he, of all men, had been granted this honor. There were others of their kind who were far more worthy: gentle scholars who valued books and learning the way Methos did, cultured elders like Marcus Constantine who had also shared the bitter blows of a life measured in millennia rather than mere centuries, stunning women like Amanda who had turned lovemaking into an art form. But Methos wanted him. More than wanted, Methos had called what they’d found his redemption, and meant it.

It was strange, unbelievable and…wonderful. Not a day went by this last month and a half that MacLeod wasn’t reminded anew of the preciousness of this gift.

One of the things he loved most was how constantly surprising Methos was. Though outwardly amenable and charming, very little really got to Methos where the man lived. Mac thought it was probably all protective barriers, but his friend seemed to keep a wall between himself and the world at large. Even with him, there was so much distancing going on, on levels that he thought were probably beyond Methos’ conscious control. 

With the amount of emotional resistance he encountered, Mac had expected to have to work to gain his lover’s trust where sex was concerned. Methos was still so private when it came to hiding the hurts of his past, still so reticent about voicing his feelings for MacLeod, that his enthusiastic abandon in bed came as a complete shock to the Highlander…but a shock of the best kind.

No one had ever opened themselves up to him the way Methos did, not even Amanda. For all that she fulfilled just about every fantasy a man could think up, she was always very much in control of herself and the events that transpired. But with Methos…it was almost as though once the Ancient Immortal gave into his feelings, he had no defense against them. Mac was beginning to suspect that this was the case outside of the bedroom as well, which was no doubt why his friend kept himself so hidden.

But right now all MacLeod was interested in was what was happening in this bed. The rest of the world could wait – forever, if it had to.

His tongue and hands couldn’t get enough of his companion’s silken flesh. Now that they’d seemed to have gotten past the latest hurdle, he was all over Methos, which appeared to be just fine with the squirming man beside him.

Laving every millimeter of silken flesh in between, Mac made his way from the collarbone towards the nearest nipple.

But before he could get a hold of it, Methos grabbed onto his shoulders, trying to pull him down onto the bed beside him. “This is a little one sided--”

Mac pulled back, “Please…let me feel all of you….”

He knew how it would go if he didn’t hold out. Just as soon as Methos had him flat on his back, the other man would focus totally on pleasing MacLeod, barely allowing the Highlander any touches that weren’t stolen. And he loved everything Methos did to him so much that he couldn’t help but get lost in the responses. Mac still didn’t know whether Methos’ behavior came from his earliest training when he’d been taught as a child to service men or whether it was born of his lover’s natural generosity of spirit. All he knew was that tonight he wanted to give his friend back some of the joy Methos gave him when he worshipped Mac’s flesh every night.

That wasn’t to say that MacLeod didn’t touch Methos, he did. It just never seemed to be enough to even out the scales, if they were weighing such things, which Methos obviously was not.

Visibly dazed by sensation, Methos questioned in a bewildered tone, “Don’t you want…?”

“I want this. Let me?”

And as Methos had done any time MacLeod had made that request, the other Immortal subsided back against the bed, granting MacLeod his mouth or his anus, whichever the Highlander asked for at that time.

Absurdly grateful, MacLeod returned his attention to his lover’s body. In the last six weeks his tongue had learned every rucked facet of those tender pink nipples. Tonight, he took his time. Soaking the rough bud of flesh with saliva, Mac blew across it, loving the stunned outcry his partner gave. He sucked that nipple and its counterpart to tingling redness before following the faint trace of hair down the center of Methos’ sternum.

The hair was so fine that it could barely be seen, but his tongue felt it; though, not nearly as much as Methos did were his moans anything to go by. He loved that about his friend, that Methos was just as noisy in bed as he was.

That nearly invisible trail led him to Methos’ navel. Shallow, dark, and warm, MacLeod took his time exploring the tasty recess. He didn’t know what it was about Methos -- it was probably something as prosaic as the soap he used -- but his new lover’s skin was almost addictively flavorful, not quite spice, but not exactly sugar sweet, either.

“I could do this forever,” MacLeod mumbled, rubbing his chin back and forth across the tender skin of Methos’ lower stomach. Methos seemed to love the abrasive scratch of his beard stubble over that ultra-soft area.

Methos gasped and shuddered, his eyes so hot that this glib rhetorician seemed beyond conscious thought, never mind words. The pink flush of passion in those long cheeks stood out like fever marks. Stars knew, Methos’ flesh was certainly hot enough to be burning up with fever. Those greenish hazel eyes were glittering with a heat that never failed to spark a matching fire in MacLeod’s own body.

Over fifty nights they’d been doing this now, and it never ceased to amaze MacLeod how much watching Methos lose control turned him on.

All teasing stopped as the rapidly expanding cock below bumped his chin. Lost in the fragrant, musky bouquet of Methos’ arousal, Mac could only follow the scent downwards, all choice removed from him. Because he loved the feel of the dewy cling of the moisture seeping from the tip of Methos’ cock against skin, Mac rubbed his face against that impressive erection, much the same way Methos had done to him on their first night together. 

That hot musk smell was all around him now, filling his lungs and world as he breathed deep and blew a hot stream of breath across those steamy genitals. 

His fingers wouldn’t wait. They found their way to the velvety softness of his lover’s testicles and the loose fold of foreskin. As his right hand worked that massive cock, his left rolled the balls below, while Methos made these incredibly hot mewling sounds that set his blood percolating. 

“Please – please – please…” Methos begged in rhythm with the Highlander’s pumping hand, his face so flushed and lined with need as to be unrecognizable as the subdued, remote Watcher MacLeod had befriended four years ago.

A month ago, this form of loving was hard for Mac. He’d spent four-hundred years as a Christian warrior, actively avoiding situations where he might be coerced by force or emotional manipulation into this very act. He couldn’t count the number of friendships he’d lost because someone had propositioned him to do this. The concept that he would give head willingly…enthusiastically…of his own free choice, blew his mind, when it wasn’t blowing him into the stratosphere. 

He’d faced down so many demons this past month, crossed so many bridges of conscience to accept Methos’ love that there were moments when Mac didn’t even recognize who he was anymore, but…he liked the man he was becoming.

Methos deserved a lover who gave as good as he got. Mac knew he wasn’t all the way there yet, that there were certain acts he might never be able to accept, but he was hopeful. The first time he’d gone down on this huge cock, he’d broken out in a cold sweat and nearly lost the contents of his stomach. He’d gagged at his friend’s first thrust and hadn’t been able to swallow any of Methos’ sperm. He’d felt like a total failure, Methos’ patience with him only making it worse.

And, the truly pitiful part was that it hadn’t a thing to do with Methos’ desirability. He’d wanted to share this with Methos, only sixteenth century Catholic mores were nearly impossible to totally exorcise from one’s consciousness. In his head, Mac knew that going down on Methos was no more unnatural or sinful than going down on Amanda was – and he’d overcome those particular inhibitions centuries ago, thank God – but convincing his instincts was quite a different matter. It was just…different with a man, harder, because until Methos, he’d never allowed himself to think of men as possible sexual partners. All this particular act had represented in the past was an aspersion to his honor.

Fortunately, he was past that foolishness now. Though Methos’ size never failed to startle him, he found this long, lean muscled, male body just as exciting as he did Amanda’s or any other woman he was interested in. Now, when he leaned in over Methos’ genitals, he wasn’t struggling to hold onto his dinner; he was working to hold himself in check, not to rush things, no matter how impatient his five-thousand-year-old companion might be. Where it was true that he hadn’t even a tenth of Methos’ experience, he wasn’t a complete neophyte when it came to the bedroom and he was determined to prove it. If not to Methos, who didn’t seem concerned with such things, then at least to himself.

“Duncan…please…yessss…” Methos hissed as MacLeod finally gave in and absorbed that needy shaft.

He loved when Methos called him by his given name. It was so rare, usually in moments of extreme duress, as though Methos couldn’t help himself at such times.

His lover’s taste flooded him, strong and spicy as a gypsy stew. Mac used his tongue on the underside of the glans, stimulating that spot that seemed to jumpstart Methos straight into orbit. 

The sounds coming from up above weren’t even decipherable anymore, let alone definable. 

Though a late bloomer, Mac was a quick study. He was good at this now. Opening his jaw to its widest possible extension, he sucked down that long, blood-red shaft, deep-throating it with a skill that even a maestro like Amanda would have admired. He could feel Methos’ smoky gaze locked upon him, the way it always seemed to be whenever MacLeod did this, as though there were a part of Methos that still couldn’t believe it were happening to him.

Methos’ hands were back on his shoulders again, his nails digging deep into MacLeod’s skin as he held on for dear life.

MacLeod took his time, drawing it out, pleasuring Methos long past his jaw’s comfort point. Finally, the warm balls he was rolling between his fingers pulled up tight to Methos’ body.

That being the signal he was waiting for, MacLeod pulled off the straining cock.

“Noooooo….please….” Methos begged with a mindless need that, while familiar, was utterly satisfying.

“Hang on. You’re gonna like this variation on the theme,” Mac promised.

Gathering his courage about him, Mac slid his hands beneath Methos’ nearly unpadded backside and gently eased the other man up. Spreading those long, corded thighs, MacLeod bared the part of his friend that he had such intimate knowledge of, yet hardly ever saw.

“Yes…oh, yesss…” Methos begged.

From the strung out tension MacLeod could feel in the body he’d just folded over on top of itself, Methos’ response would probably have been the same if the Highlander were planning on vivisecting him. 

Mac knew that level of need. He was dancing with it himself at the moment as he stared down between those snow-white, flat cheeks. Fire licked through his loins at the sight of Methos so open to him. 

Though it shamed him to admit it in the cold light of day, having this ancient being offer himself to him this way was the hottest turn-on he’d ever encountered. There wasn’t any Immortal as powerful as Methos. The signature of his presence rang out with a depth and potency that felt like the power encountered on the most sacred of holy ground. To have all that history, strength, and power submit to him on a nightly basis appealed to a primitive part of MacLeod that he liked to ignore. Only, he couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist in bed, not when his instincts were running the show like this. 

And, of course, his savage enjoyment of Methos’ gift only increased his guilt. There was just no way around it. He was as addicted to taking Methos as Cullen had been to opium. Thank God his friend liked it. MacLeod honestly didn’t know what he’d do if Methos didn’t derive pleasure from this.

If MacLeod had harbored any doubts about his partner’s enjoyment of this particular act, the speed with which Methos opened himself up to him would have dispelled them.

He swallowed hard as Methos’ shift in position exposed the tiny, dark orifice with which he’d only had tactile association. The puckered opening was impossibly small to the eye, and, he knew from experience, equally tight.

Methos was…beautiful and vulnerable, neither of which were adjectives that were normally applicable to this sarcastic chameleon, but both of which were breathtakingly appropriate at the present moment.

“Duncan?” his name was a strangled moan.

MacLeod glanced up at his friend’s face. Rapture didn’t half describe it. Big beads of sweat dripped down that sheened brow from Methos’s rumpled, soaked hair like they were in a sauna. The handsome features were lined with need, sharp and flushed. But it was the eyes more than anything that got to him…hungry and bright, they were focused on MacLeod as though he were the only thing in Methos’ universe.

And perhaps he was. He certainly felt that way about Methos at the moment.

Normally, MacLeod would ask permission before he went trailblazing any new frontiers, but his lover’s heated gaze seemed to grant him free license to anything and everything he might desire.

Methos’ sob filled the room as Mac lowered his mouth to a place previously touched only by fingers and penis. He was quivering with suppressed need himself as he breathed in the hot scent of the tight-guarded entrance.

He’d done this before with Amanda, but the occasion hadn’t risen yet with Methos. The Ancient Immortal had a way of precipitating events so Mac never had the opportunity to slow things down enough to indulge this way. Whether it were the alcohol Methos had consumed tonight, a byproduct of the emotional stress, or compliance with MacLeod’s request to be humored, his friend was not himself tonight. 

It shouldn’t surprise him, but even this was different than when he did it with Amanda. His nose and forehead didn’t come to rest on a soft pubic mound and moist vagina. Instead, he found himself up close and personal with heavy testicles and a hard, hungry cock. Male, everything about Methos was just so masculine and strong that it still stunned MacLeod at times that Methos would want him this way.

The act itself was the same, though, even if Methos’ response was more dramatic. Normally, when he did this with Amanda, he’d get some wonderfully erotic moans, but when his tongue tip touched the center of that tight, puckered entrance, Methos let loose a scream that sounded like he’d achieved the orgasm of the century.

Methos’ hands leaped from MacLeod’s shoulders to tangle in his loose hair as the Highlander lapped at that perfect spot. The noises Methos made were too loud to be either groans or moans, but the harsh, guttural sounds cried out to something equally primal inside MacLeod. 

He used his tongue to tantalize that sensitive orifice until it loosened to his slick probes. The taste of the flesh here was different than anywhere else, metallic and very human. Mac didn’t hunger for the flavor the way he did Methos’ sweat or eye salts, but it moved him in a way those other tastes rarely did. 

MacLeod juiced the perimeter up with his saliva, then began thrusting his tongue in and out in a rhythm that foreshadowed his future intent.

If he’d still doubted Methos’ passion for penetration, the mindless mantra of “please, please, now…” that was coming from above in at least five different languages would have settled his doubts completely. Methos was as hot to be taken as he was to take. It was still incomprehensible to MacLeod, but it was also incontestable, what with the living proof writhing beneath his tongue. 

When he’d done all that was humanly possible there, Mac lifted his head, wincing as Methos’ fingers helplessly tugged his hair almost out of his scalp. 

The fact that there was no immediate apology told him how far gone his friend was. Normally, they were both tripping over themselves to be courteous, even here.

His heart skipped a beat as he met Methos’ gaze. 

There was no higher thought in those eyes, just the rawest, most carnal need MacLeod had seen in four centuries of intercourse. And there was something else. Even now, when passion had driven his lover to the very brink of sanity, there was still a wariness. Methos was watching him as though he were being played with, as though MacLeod might suddenly leave the bed and abandon him. 

Mac had no doubt that it had happened in the past. The images he’d gotten from both Kronos and Byron’s Quickenings had been enough to show him that whatever Methos had shared with either of these men, it hadn’t been about Methos’ needs. Though he knew that his friend had enjoyed dozens of perfectly normal, healthy relationships, the longer he knew Methos, the more MacLeod was beginning to suspect that at the times when his lover had needed something the most, Methos had been denied or betrayed – which was perhaps why he’d come to expect it. Methos’ level of disappointment was probably relative to that of his desire – the more something meant to him, the more Methos expected it to slip through his fingers. 

But that wasn’t going to happen here, not with him.

“I willna leave ya,” MacLeod promised, his brogue so thick that he wondered if Methos could even decipher it, “not ever.”

Only then did he do what they both wanted, lift those narrow hips and slide home.

Saliva wasn’t the best of lubricants, but if the entry was on the dry side, neither of them seemed to notice. 

All MacLeod could feel was that warm, tight body opening up to him. 

What Methos felt was clear in his face. Mac didn’t know if he would ever understand how having something as wide and long as his penis shoved up inside him could possibly be viewed as a relief, but he’d lived long enough to recognize the emotion for what it was. Methos looked like MacLeod felt, as though every aching, desperate need had been instantly fulfilled with the entrance of MacLeod’s thick cock into his body.

After six weeks of doing this, those initial moments of penetration shouldn’t come as such a sensual shock for MacLeod, but everything was still so physical, so amazingly intense. He’d never felt anything like it. The heat of that almost painfully tight channel gripping him was perfect. Their bodies fit like they’d been made for each other.Yet, for all its fiercely erotic rush, there was something incredibly comforting about it as well. Emotionally, it felt like coming home, like after four centuries of wandering, he’d finally found his way back to the familiar hearth fire that had been forever lost to him all those long years ago.

But there was so much more to being inside Methos than the mere physicality of the act. Mac could feel that warm body quivering around and under him, could feel the sweat running slick off both their skins, could almost taste the sex in the air he breathed in…none of that was new or in the least unusual. Maybe even the bone-melting tenderness he felt whenever he slid inside Methos wasn’t particularly noteworthy or extraordinary.

What was peculiar to intercourse with Methos was the change in their energy fields, that ever-present buzz that all Immortals had. When he was thrusting inside Methos like this, Mac could feel the flow between them. He’d bedded dozens of Immortals and never encountered anything like this. Sometimes when it was really hot with Amanda, he’d get a sense of it. The power would be sparking around them so strong that it almost felt like they rocked the barge, but this was even more than that.

It was as if a conduit for the power that made up their distinctive Quickenings opened up, allowing their signatures to meld and blend the way their body fluids did. This unique melding added an almost psychic level to the sex that Mac had never heard of. It wasn’t as though their consciousnesses were touching, for he couldn’t hear thoughts. Rather, it was more like he was living inside Methos’ skin for the brief moments they were fucking. 

Sometimes he thought that it might be a holdover from that joint Quickening they’d experienced when they’d taken Kronos and Silas’ heads at almost the same instant. It seemed that maybe the energies they’d inadvertently exchanged at that point were trying to find their way home to their proper bodies, but…the power didn’t stay put. As soon as MacLeod pulled out of Methos’ flesh, the conduit closed down and the energies rushed back to their respective bodies.

But right now those energy circuits were wide open and MacLeod was flying high. The freedom and rush of the act was incomprehensible. He felt like Icarus, before the sun melted his wings. He was burning up from the inside out, the pleasure and energy mix so sharp it hurt. 

Methos was tight as a vise around him, but still pliant. There was no ripping or tearing, for all that the saliva had given out already. Mac pushed in deep, pulled all the way out, then drove in home again, discovering the rhythm that was as familiar as that of his own beating heart. His right hand left Methos’ shoulder to commandeer that impressive cock, needing to feel his lover’s pleasure as well.

The alcohol had slowed Methos down some, but at MacLeod’s first stroke, the sluggish flesh expanded to startling fullness. Even after all this time, it still felt strange to MacLeod to feel another man’s shaft stiffen and pulse to life in his hand. His own erections had never seemed a source of wonder to him, but Methos’ were.

They were both panting and groaning like the soundtrack to a cheap skin flick. As sensations sharpened, so did that power flow between them. Methos was so drenched with sweat that Mac could barely hold onto him. He wasn’t in much better shape. His hair was in strings draping his cheeks, wet as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. Every time he thrust in, a barrage of perspiration drops would be flung down onto Methos’ already soaked chest. 

They didn’t do it in this position very often. Methos seemed to prefer being on his knees, which allowed him far more movement and, therefore, more control. But MacLeod liked it like this. He loved seeing the play of emotion over Methos’ strained features, loved watching the pain of need give way to the sheer incredulity of climax and from there into afterglow.

And it had one other added benefit that he was quick to indulge in tonight. When Methos was flat on his back like this, they could kiss the entire time.

He latched onto those tasty lips as soon as he was able, drowning in their depths as Methos tried to suck his toenails out of him. They were so equally matched here, so in tune with each other that it frightened MacLeod sometimes. 

Fear, that was something else he wasn’t used to feeling during sex.

As he stared at that weird reaction, Mac began to get a taste of what his lover must be experiencing in their affair. They might have been born almost five millennia apart, but they both had the superstitious dread that only those born before the Age of Reason could experience. They’d both been reared with some version of the belief that the angels and ancient gods did not smile on perfection. Ever jealous of their divine status, when something came too close to the ideal, it was inevitably knocked down. Mac had only to review his own life for corroboration of that cold fact – Deborah, Little Deer, Tessa…each and every time MacLeod had found something that made him feel this good, it was snatched from his hands. And, shocking as it was to admit, nothing had ever felt like Methos.

Mac didn’t like thinking about this kind of thing. Spurred on by the fragility of even Immortal life, MacLeod pushed the ghosts from his mind. He buried himself instead in sensation and Methos. 

Everything was becoming too visceral. Delight danced through his blood like a narcotic, the energy levels peaking, his senses swirling, reality tunneling down to the pumping of his hips, the clutch of that tight channel around him, and the embrace of Methos’ powerful legs. His heart was pounding faster than that race horse Kit and Amanda had fought over. He went to that place where there was only the magic of the connection of two bodies, that sacred space where love was more tangible than the ground beneath one’s feet. 

Each breath was fought for like a Quickening. His body was on fire and only Methos could put it out, but there was no relief there either. Methos’ flesh was burning like kindling. The power was jumping along that open conduit between them like 20,000 volts of raw electricity. It was a wonder they weren’t writhing under the lightning blasts that they’d both suffered far too many times. The whole room felt like it was jolting.

The incredible rush of tangled sensation and emotion flared, white hot as nuclear fusion. Mac had often wondered if any Immortals had survived Hiroshima, and, if they had, what it had felt like. Now he knew. You felt your skin burn, then the flesh melted off your bones, then the bones themselves liquefied. After that it was all a molten gush.

Mac ripped his mouth free of his lover’s. Overcome, he cried out, faintly hearing Methos groan beneath him as climax convulsed through them both. As he’d done for the past fifty some odd nights, MacLeod pumped the melted runoff that had once been his physical self deep into the secret recesses of Methos body. Vaguely, he was aware of the scalding splatter of Methos’ coming spurting his chest and belly.

Even though he wasn’t sure he could survive another second in that vortex of ripping pleasure, MacLeod was still sad to feel his shaft deflate and slip free of Methos.

The physical separation came a moment before the metaphysical one. With a final, wrenching pull, the energies withdrew to wherever they originated from. And all that was left in the sudden quiet was the pounding of two hearts and their ragged breathing.

Mac knew that his body would eventually reassemble from wherever Methos had sent it. It always did. But right now, he didn’t have a solid bone or muscle to his name.

Having no choice in the matter, Mac collapsed right on top of his friend. He pressed his face into a the sweat-slick crevice between Methos’ neck and collarbone, sucking the salty drops into his dry mouth. He lay there panting, too whipped to budge.

Methos’ pain filled grunt seemed to indicate that he was attaining solid state a little faster.

“Sorry,” Mac gasped, still unable to do a thing about moving.

Methos’ chuckle was as unexpected and as satisfying as the orgasm they’d just achieved. “Sorry, he says.”

“Mmmm?”

If his lover were hoping for intelligent conversation, it was going to be a while.

“Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, that is not something for which a man should apologize – ever.” Methos was practically glowing with contentment.

Though his cheeks were warming from the praise, MacLeod was glad for it. Methos wasn’t bullshitting him. He could see that the other man was still gasping more than breathing, as flushed with pleasure as he was himself. It stood to reason that words would be more important to his lover than breath.

Appreciating that fact, Mac tried to return the favor, to give Methos something he’d like to hear. “It’s…never been like that for me before, Methos.”

MacLeod was proud of himself. The words were all in the same language and even made sense. That they were true was an added boon.

“Me neither,” Methos sighed. Seeming to give up the hope of ever getting out from beneath MacLeod’s no doubt squashing weight, he stretched beneath him.

Mac hissed in a breath, unable to believe that his body would be interested so soon after such a cathartic orgasm.

“Truth?” MacLeod asked, trying to distract himself from the sensuous movement of rippling muscle beneath him.

“It’s not something I could lie about. If our Quickenings had called any louder to each other, we’d be toast right now.”

Lured by the information, MacLeod managed to raise his head high enough to stare down into Methos’ face. The sweat was cooling on his lover’s skin. Methos looked sleepy and utterly sated now.

“You have felt that before then,” MacLeod determined.

“Not to that degree,” Methos replied, reaching up to stroke the hair clear of MacLeod’s face. “It’s…rare – almost unheard of.”

“What does it mean?” Mac asked.

“That we are…very much in tune,” Methos said, his smile gentle and loving.

“Yes, but…what does it _mean_?” he repeated.

Methos shrugged. “How should I know?”

“But…you said….”

“I felt it once, more than fifteen-hundred years ago. And it was nowhere near as strong as it is with you,” Methos answered, a trace of his testy self filtering through the bonhomie of afterglow.

“Who with?” Mac braced himself, praying it wasn’t Kronos. The timeframe was all wrong for it to have been Cassandra,

It was a long time before Methos answered. Just when MacLeod was beginning to think he wouldn’t respond, Methos quietly offered, “The man whose Quickening changed Darius.”

“Merlin,” MacLeod said, hearing the hushed wonder in his own voice.

“Joe has a big mouth,” Methos sighed, seeming weary, but not too upset to find that his friends had been discussing him behind his back.

MacLeod had a million questions he wanted to ask, but Methos’ expression made it plain that this was an extremely painful memory. Though loving Methos gave him some rights, it didn’t give him free license to go day tripping through his lover’s tragedies. Joe had told him the story. The bare bones would have to be enough.

A century of strained quiet seemed to pass before Methos questioned, “Don’t you want to know the sordid details?”

The tension in the body that was still supporting him told MacLeod how much Methos didn’t want to have this discussion. It was equally clear from Methos’ expression that he would tell MacLeod if he requested it of him.

This wasn’t a power he’d asked for. Mac wasn’t even sure he wanted it. The only thing he was certain of was that he was going to do his damnedest not to abuse it.

“No. Someday when the hurt’s not so raw, you may feel like telling me about it,” Mac answered.

“Raw? It’s been almost two millennia….”

MacLeod silenced the rest with a soft kiss. Methos’ lips clung to him with a desperate need that belied the resounding orgasm they’d just experienced.

When he eventually withdrew, MacLeod said, “It still hurts. Let it go for now. I’ll be around when you’re ready to talk about it.”

“It’s been fifteen hundred years, Highlander. It could be twice that before….”

“We’ve got time. We’ll talk about it then,” Mac promised, brushing the lank, perspiration-soaked hair back from where it had drooped over Methos’ forehead.

He could see in Methos’ strained features how hard those words hit. His own throat ached in sympathy with the loud gulp Methos gave.

“Mac?”

“Yes?” he hoped his smile was reassuring. Methos looked totally adrift at the moment.

“I…want to believe. I’ll work on it. I promise.”

MacLeod reached down to cup his friend’s cheek, his insides clenching as though being twisted through a turn of the century clothes wringer. He’d never felt this much for anyone in his life. 

“Are you familiar with Frost?” Mac asked.

“Robert Frost?”

“Ah-huh,” MacLeod nodded.

“ _The Road Not Taken_?” Methos guessed. MacLeod could almost see his lover’s brilliant mind sorting through Frost’s works.

“No. I think it was one of his essays. _We love what we love for what it is_. You don’t have to change for me.”

Reading how fragile Methos’ equilibrium was at that moment, Mac gave his friend his privacy and laid his head back upon that satin smooth, slightly clammy chest. Methos’ arms tightened around him, holding him as close as possible.

He didn’t like falling asleep on his insomniac lover, but tonight he had no choice. Their argument and lovemaking had left him running on empty. Lulled by the steady rhythm of the oldest heart on the planet, MacLeod gave himself over to slumber.

He wasn’t sure what they’d settled tonight, but as he lay drifting off in that loving embrace, it sure felt like forever. And, for once, the idea of that kind of a commitment to another Immortal didn’t strike him as eternally confining. To the contrary, as Methos’ palm rubbed his back in slow circles, it felt like the best kind of freedom he’d ever known.

********************


	4. Courts of Honor

_COURTS OF HONOR_

Maurice’s dark, smoky cabaret was practically vibrating with sound. The last note of Joe Dawson’s killer solo still seemed to be echoing off the walls as the applause in the crowded club reached deafening levels.

Cramped in the limited space at their packed table, Methos stretched his long legs out in front of him and slumped a little to the side to get a better view of the stage. His shoulder banged up against the burning wall of muscle that had been keeping him warm on these cold winter nights.

He couldn’t help it. He looked over, the lure of Duncan MacLeod far more irresistible than even the finest music he’d heard this century. 

The contact had obviously caught Mac’s attention as well. His eyes dancing with joy, a grin on his handsome, five o’clock shadowed face, the madly clapping Scott glanced over at him.

MacLeod’s smile changed, mutating to something less brilliant, softer and more intimate. Due to the bar’s overcrowding, their faces were mere inches apart, perfectly aligned for a kiss. With that frightening awareness that operated between them, Methos saw the same thought occur to his lover. 

Shocked, he saw Mac actually consider the idea. Those dark eyes moved from Methos to Ritchie Ryan on Methos’ other side, then over to the two women beyond Ryan. MacLeod seemed to seriously calculate their chances of getting away with it, before his better sense prevailed. Instead of kissing him, Mac slung an arm across his shoulders and squeezed him tight, mouthing the word ‘later.’

Methos breathed a sigh of relief. Ritchie had just hit town this morning and they hadn’t gotten around to telling him about this new phase of their relationship yet. Even though Methos didn’t have any real affection for MacLeod’s young protégée, he didn’t think it fair for the kid to find out through a public kiss.

Not that such scenes were exactly Mac’s style, either, but MacLeod never ceased to amaze him. He never knew what Mac would and wouldn’t do.

To be honest, the fact that Mac was still sitting here like this, after more than three months of non-stop loving was a daily source of wonder. 

The clapping eventually died down. The house lights came up, temporarily blinding everyone. Excited laughter, conversation and chair scraping replaced the applause as the patrons turned back to their tables.

Methos turned back to his own. Mac’s arm let him move, but once he was settled, the Highlander rested it against the back of his chair in a gesture that could have been casual, but wasn’t.

Methos knew he was a sap, but he loved the little ways Mac found of letting him know he was still thinking of him without throwing their new relationship in everyone’s face. MacLeod had a style that Methos had rarely seen the likes of. Though Mac never embarrassed him in public, there was never any sense of hiding what they had. It was there for anyone to see, anyone who knew them well enough to make the connection.

“Great show, hah, Mac?” Ryan leaned in close to shout his question over the din.

“Yeah, Joe was hot tonight,” Mac answered back, his smiling eyes moving to the foot of the stage, where Dawson was still surrounded by an adoring crowd.

“Speaking of hot, it’s gotta be ninety in here,” Ritchie commented, draining his pint and reaching for the pitcher. His black leather jacket was slung over the back of his chair. Even without it, his tight black tee shirt was stained with sweat

Duncan was just as soaked. He’d peeled off his outer layers and was looking gloriously steamy in an equally tight, pale gray tee shirt. His five o’clock shadow gave Mac a stubbly, rugged air that that scruffy Yank with the wrinkled linen suits and no socks who’d been so popular a few decades back would have died to own. The Highlander’s loose brown hair was beginning to drip with sweat, like it would at the peak of passion. And, that was so not an association Methos needed to make in this very public venue. 

He shifted in his seat, his black jeans suddenly a size too tight in front. Unable to credit how aroused just looking at Mac was making him, Methos took another sip of his beer and dragged his eyes away from MacLeod. The empty chair near the wall was nowhere near as absorbing, yet even there Methos found something to focus him on Mac. MacLeod’s gray fisherman’s sweater and both their coats were there saving a seat for Dawson. The tangle of the garments struck Methos as deeply significant at that moment, seeming to illustrate how deeply and effortlessly their lives were meshing. 

Realizing how impossibly sentimental that thought was, Methos’ gaze moved from his beer mug to the near empty pitcher on the table as he attempted to calculate how much he’d consumed. He was not pleased by the result. Two pints was not a sufficient amount of alcohol to cause that type of blubbering sentimentality. Next thing, he’d be wanting to exchange friendship rings with MacLeod, and wouldn’t Mac laugh himself sick over that?

Well, possibly not. It wasn’t as though he was the only one suffering these embarrassing impulses. But, MacLeod didn’t seem to find any of it embarrassing: not the stigma that came from loving another man, the baggage of Methos’ past, the sex or the tender streaks that hit both of them at unexpected moments. MacLeod had been as upright and honorable about their affair as he was about all else in his life, and Methos loved the man for it, with a depth and passion that terrified him.

Loving Mac this way, caring so much about another Immortal still scared him, but at the moment, Methos was doing all right dealing with it. It felt good to sit here and see his lover so relaxed. 

Good, but unbearably warm. The heat and closeness of the room getting to him, Methos tugged at his collar. He was the only one of them still properly dressed. Though he felt like he were wearing a parka in a sweat lodge, the russet Henley he’d borrowed from MacLeod’s wardrobe was going nowhere. Old habits died hard. He’d rather be covered than comfortable.

“Damn!” Ritchie swore. He stopped pouring as he got a mugful of beer foam.

“Tough luck, kid. Looks like this round’s on you,” Methos laughed.

Ryan grimaced, looked around the packed pub, then shouted, “Francine!” to their waitress – who from all indications would be spending the next three hours taking drink orders at the bass player’s table.

“I’ll go get it from the bar,” Ritchie groused, sounding like he was going to have to walk to the brewery in Germany for the ale.

Methos shook his head as he watched the redhead disappear into the crowd. Ryan might live to be a thousand, but he had the kind of personality that Methos knew would never change. A hundred years from now, Ritchie would probably still be an annoying adolescent, providing he kept his head that long.

“Hey,” MacLeod leaned in close to be heard, “how are you doing?”

“Good beer, good music, good company…it doesn’t get much better than this, MacLeod…at least not in public,” Methos amended at the wicked arch Mac’s thick left eyebrow made.

“You’ve been awful quiet since that phone call yesterday afternoon,” Mac went on, straight-forward as ever when it came to tackling problems. “Is everything all right?”

Methos sighed. In times past, he was inscrutable, a mystery to even MacLeod. But these days he was an open book to his lover. He wasn’t sure if he liked being that obvious, but since Duncan never took advantage of his transparency, Methos supposed he could live with it. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Methos answered. “It was just the department head from the University. He, ah, wanted to know if I could teach a course this summer when one of my former colleagues goes on sabbatical.”

The last was hesitantly voiced. Until MacLeod had brought up the phone call, Methos hadn’t been certain if he would even broach the subject with MacLeod. 

Methos’ priorities were clear, if not entirely logical. Being with MacLeod was of paramount importance right now. All else had to get in line behind that, even his current livelihood.

Teaching that summer course could put obstacles between them, the biggest being an ocean separating them. Mac usually wintered in Paris and returned to Seacouver in May. If Methos had simply kept silent on the matter, the classes he was currently teaching would have ended right around the time MacLeod normally flew home. He could have just followed Mac back, like he had the past three years. But that was back when he was with the Watchers, when he had a steady salary coming in. These days, his teaching was supporting him. Doctoring the poor for two centuries and his academic obsession for the millennia and a half before that had made him a better human being, but it had done little to enhance his bank accounts. He had several holdings to his name and a modest savings, but he was nowhere near as financially secure as MacLeod. He couldn’t take off for months on end anymore. The three months he’d spent hiding out after Bordeaux had put him in serious financial states.

And yet, despite his real need to teach that class, he was reluctant to make an issue of this.

For all of Duncan’s avowals, they were still living day to day, in love, in Paris. There was a certain magic to this city that got in everyone’s blood, allowed passion to take precedence over logic. But sooner or later, real life always intruded, even in the city of lovers. Methos had been determined not to rock the boat until absolutely necessary. If that meant refusing an attractive job offer so that he’d be free should MacLeod have to pull up stakes and head back to the States, so be it. Right now Mac was more important than keeping a roof over his head.

“What did you say?” Mac asked, referring to Methos’ conversation with the department head.

Methos looked for the telltale tension that would reveal Mac’s feelings on the matter, but MacLeod simply appeared curious, neither threatened nor stressed. It wasn’t at all the expression of a man whose life was about to be upended by someone else’s life choices. In the past that would have meant that the person Methos was with didn’t care if he breezed out of their life, but Methos knew better than to make that assumption here.

“I told him that I’d get back to him on it.”

“I thought you enjoyed teaching those philosophy classes,” Mac said, looking confused.

“I do, but…” Methos hedged, a little unnerved by MacLeod’s calm. 

“But?”

It shouldn’t be this difficult, Methos told himself, swallowing hard. He hated making assumptions, hated making plans. But…Mac needed him to trust him and they’d both agreed on honesty. More than that, there was a part of him that wanted very much to trust Mac, to be sure enough of their relationship to bank on it instead of just accepting everything as it came.

Taking a deep breath, Methos checked to make certain that the two blonde women who’d been crammed between their table and the next were out of hearing distance before he quietly admitted, “I enjoy being with you more. I thought if you were called back to the States, that I might come back with you for a while…”

His words seemed to hang there in the air like the tobacco smoke clouding the room. Methos’ heart was pounding at breakneck speed, the fear factor phenomenal. 

For a moment, Mac looked as though he’d had the wind knocked out of him. Then the Highlander’s face gentled into that familiar, gut-wrenching expression he wore when they were in bed. Clearly seeing him far more thoroughly than Methos ever liked being known, MacLeod answered in an equally subdued tone, “Take the job if you want it. There’s nothing in the States that can’t wait – indefinitely, if need be.”

Methos swallowed, his relief almost leaving him weak. Mac hadn’t let him down yet. But MacLeod had such a self-sacrificing streak in him that Methos had to be certain staying wouldn’t be a hardship. “You’re sure it won’t be a problem?”

“We’re together now. If we’re gonna stay that way; we’re both gonna have to make adjustments in our lives. Right now you have a career that requires you to stay in one place for a while. I don’t. My business can be conducted here as easily as the States.”

MacLeod’s expression made it plain that this was no sacrifice to him, but rather something he’d expected, perhaps even planned on. 

It wasn’t the first time the Highlander had adjusted his life to accommodate a lover. Methos was reminded of MacLeod’s Chronicle, the part where Dawson had mentioned MacLeod moving to Paris when Tessa Noel became curator of an art museum. Methos had seen how deeply this man loved, how totally Mac gave his whole self to love. But reading facts and being a spectator on the sidelines was quite a different experience from being the person to whom Duncan MacLeod devoted himself. Being on the receiving end was…like nothing he’d ever known.

There was a part of Methos that knew that he simply wasn’t worthy of this. He was no Tessa, no Little Deer. The only thing pure about him was the love he bore MacLeod. That this good and noble man could be equally attached to him was incomprehensible. But…for whatever reason, MacLeod did love him. As long as that was true, Methos was determined to die trying to live up to his lover’s expectations.

“Thank you,” the words came out as a strangled whisper. All Methos wanted to do at that moment was fling himself into Mac’s arms, the crowd be damned.

Mac shook his head, his loose brown tresses sliding over his broad shoulders in a glossy cascade. “Not for that-“

“Heads up, guys,” Ritchie Ryan warned seconds before he plunked a too-full beer pitcher down right in front of them. 

Duncan and he both jumped like startled cats. 

For the few minutes Ryan had been gone, nothing had existed in the world for them but each other’s eyes. While that was a wonderful thing in itself, it could get them into trouble. Ritchie Ryan was another Immortal. There was no way the kid should have been able to get that close without Methos sensing him. 

Ryan, being the perspicacious observer that he was, didn’t say a word about the scene he’d interrupted. Though, to be fair to the kid, it wasn’t all due to Ryan’s faulty observation skills. Maurice’s had a standing room only crowd tonight, and there wasn’t much floor space left for even that. Every available inch was crammed with blues lovers. The canned music had started again, a classic twenties Bourbon Street sound that was hard to think over, let alone talk through. The bar was so loud that everyone in the place had to lean close as lovers if they wanted their conversation to be heard, so maybe it wasn’t that strange that Ritchie would fail to notice anything amiss, even if Joe had sussed them out on their very first day together. Privately, Methos suspected that Ritchie would have to catch MacLeod and him in flagrante delicto before Ryan would buy a clue.

Methos still wasn’t sure how they were going to handle tonight. Neither he nor MacLeod had been home when Ryan had arrived at the barge. The kid had stowed his gear at Mac’s like Ryan always did when he was in Paris, so now they had one of those awkward social situations on their hands that Methos had spent thousands of years learning to avoid.

Were he with anyone else, Methos would have expected to be put on hold until Ryan left, but he knew Mac well enough now to be fairly certain that wasn’t going to happen. Methos wished that he and Mac had had a chance to talk, but their schedules hadn’t allowed it. When MacLeod and he had made their planned rendezvous at the club tonight, they’d found Ryan waiting with a very amused Dawson.

“Marty said that there’s a record company representative here tonight,” Ritchie said, sliding into his chair and reaching out to refill all their mugs.

“Thanks,” Methos acknowledged Ryan’s pouring.

“Joe’s been hot enough to interest a record company, that’s for sure,” Mac said, tilting his own empty mug towards his student. “So what’ve you been up to, Ritch?”

Ryan’s broad shoulders shrugged. “Still traveling, tryna figure out what I’m gonna do now that the racing’s panned out.”

“Public deaths are such a bummer,” Methos softly interjected, too low to be heard by anyone but his two Immortal companions. His words earned him a sour glance from Ryan and a nudge in the ribs from Mac.

“Joe tells me that you’re not with the Watchers anymore,” Ryan commented in an equally low voice. “What’s up with that?”

Methos glanced at Duncan, genuinely surprised. He knew that Ryan had visited MacLeod right after Kronos and company had died in Bordeaux. Methos had been certain both Ryan and Amanda must have been told about Methos’ past and the events of last spring. He’d figured Amanda had lived long enough for her to accept his less than sterling past. But seeing Ritchie’s genuine curiosity, Methos realized that Mac had kept his secret, even when they weren’t even talking. That kind of restraint was nearly unheard of. Methos didn’t know anyone who could have resisted the opportunity to vent like Mac had. No doubt talking out of school like that would have violated MacLeod’s chivalric code or some other equally incomprehensible point of honor. Whatever the reason, Methos appreciated his lover’s restraint.

Touched, Methos fielded the question, “It was time to move on. I’d been there over ten years.”

Ritchie winced. “You figured that sooner or later someone was bound to notice you still looked twenty-four?”

Twenty-four? Did Ritchie really think he’d died that young? He’d been closer to thirty when his master had finally done something his Pre-Immortal constitution hadn’t been able to endure.

“Something like that,” Methos said, wondering if MacLeod would take issue with his evasion, but Duncan let the topic pass unchallenged. Uncomfortable with being the object of discussion, Methos turned the tables, coincidentally bringing the topic back to their problem at hand, by asking, “So, how long are you staying in Paris, Ritchie?”

“I don’t know. A couple of weeks, maybe. Thought I’d hang around until the weather got warmer,” Ryan answered, stretching out and taking a slug of his beer.

“Ah, we might have a problem there, Ritch,” MacLeod said.

Methos could see that his friend was uncomfortable addressing this subject in so open an area. “Perhaps it would be best to wait until later to-“

“No, now’s as good a time as any,” MacLeod answered.

Methos shrugged. Ryan was MacLeod’s student. It was his lover’s call to make. So long as the kid didn’t embarrass them all in a public scene, Methos couldn’t really care less what Ritchie Ryan thought of him.

“What’s up, Mac?” Ryan asked, finally tuning into the mood of the two elder Immortals.

His attitude regretful, Mac softly admitted, “This really isn’t a good time for me to have company. I’m sorry.”

With that infectious good humor that was grounds for beheading in Methos’ opinion, Ryan grinned and instantly assured, “No problemo, Mac. Joe offered me his couch when I blew in this afternoon. No wonder he looked at me so weird when I said I was bunking in with you. Where’s Amanda? She usually doesn’t miss Joe’s shows.”

Methos and Mac vented the same weary sigh at the same moment. 

Mac glanced at him, shared a small smile before his face grew serious and he returned his attention to Ritchie. “Amanda’s not here, Ritch.

“So who’s the new lady in your life? What’s her name?” Ryan’s totally wicked grin gave his face all the appeal of a leering jack-o-lantern.

“There is no ‘her.’ Adam’s been staying with me,” MacLeod offered, an expression of almost laughable expectation on his handsome features.

Clearly, that was Duncan MacLeod’s idea of _coming out_.

To say that Ryan’s response was completely anti-climatic would be a gross understatement. The kid’s affable face remained completely unaltered as he turned to Methos and said, “Oh, yeah? Your place being painted again?”

MacLeod was sitting cattycorner on his left now that they’d turned back to the table, so he could see his lover’s responses out of the corner of his eye, even though he was focused on Ryan, who was seated on his right. Methos almost laughed at Mac’s dismayed wince. Of course, Ryan hadn’t gotten it.

Methos gave a slow shake of his head, almost enjoying this. Density like Ritchie’s was rare among their kind, but in Ryan’s defense, the kid was young, even by mortal reckoning of age, and, beyond that, it was Duncan MacLeod they were discussing. This wasn’t exactly a conclusion that anyone who knew the Highlander would leap to…ever.

His voice taking on that leading, irritating nasal tone that was no-doubt supposed to be humorous, Ritchie questioned, “So, you’re bunking in with Mac because…?”

“Because the prospect of leaving a warm bed at two o’clock in the morning to hike across town through the snow is less than appealing,” Methos smoothly replied.

“Damn it, Adam!” Mac exploded beside him as Ryan’s jaw all but dropped to his knees.

“I’m sorry, MacLeod. He was not going to get it any other way,” keeping in his chuckle took Herculean effort. The kid still had this stunned look about him, like he wasn’t sure what he’d heard.

Ryan turned to the more sympathetic MacLeod and persevered with, “So what you’re saying is that Me…Adam is staying with you, but the couch is still vacant?”

“Yes,” MacLeod confirmed with the patience of a saint. That it was important to Mac that Ryan support him in this was clear from the tense set of those chiseled features.

“And this is, like, not a joke?” Ryan checked, his expression as pathetically hopeful as Mac’s had been a moment before.

“Nope,” Methos drawled, waiting to see how Mac’s young protégée would jump on this. 

Ritchie was a curious character. The kid could be as pig-headed and idealistic as a certain Scot they were both inordinately fond of, but Ryan also had a prosaic streak to him that Methos could only hope his lover would develop. A child of the streets, Ryan didn’t have to be taught caution. He knew the world was a dangerous place and people were rarely what they seemed. Ryan’s rough upbringing could give him a lais sez faire attitude towards his teacher’s new relationship or Ritchie could follow in MacLeod’s footsteps and judge them by his own morals. The fact that Methos couldn’t predict which course Ryan would choose spoke well for the kid. Despite the hero-worship going on with MacLeod, Ritchie had managed to maintain his own sovereignty.

Were he the sensitive type, Methos probably would have been offended by Ritchie’s shocked, “You and _him_ …?” but since Methos wore pretty much the same look in the mirror nine out of ten mornings these last three months, he supposed Ryan could be forgiven.

“Yes,” MacLeod repeated once again, then asked the same question he had of Dawson the night they’d laid Mike Paladini in his grave. “Is this going to be a problem for you?”

Whereas Joe’s response had had true significance to Methos, he couldn’t be bothered with Ryan’s. Except…it would upset Mac if Ritchie spurned him, and for that reason alone this stupid twit of a child had better answer correctly.

Ritchie looked at MacLeod like he’d grown a second head. “A problem? No, but you just gave me a heart attack here. Give a guy a chance to recuperate, okay?”

Ryan took a deep gulp of his beer, his brown eyes straying from one of them to the other with a totally incredulous expression.

“I guess it’s none of my business how this came about, huh?” Ryan asked.

“Bright boy,” Methos applauded before MacLeod could go all honest and forthright on them. 

“You, ah, you’re happy?” Ritchie asked MacLeod after a long moment, as though that was really all that mattered to him. 

Someday he might be secure enough not to have to observe MacLeod’s response to that kind of question. As that day was still very far off in a murky future, Methos was watching Mac as closely as Ryan was as the Highlander nodded and answered, “Very.”

There was an air of peace around Mac as he made his admission that was almost palpable.

Sap that he was, the warmth that spread through Methos at Mac’s prompt response had him smiling over at his lover. He turned back to find Ryan staring at him with an indecipherable expression on his face.

“What?” Methos demanded with his usual testy bite.

“Nothing,” the humor in Ryan’s gaze belied the word.

“Then kindly stop gaping before I remove your eyes from your head,” Methos said, losing patience.

“Cranky, isn’t he?” Ryan courted dismemberment by asking of MacLeod.

Mac shrugged. A conspiratorial air coming over him, he leaned towards Ritchie and said, “He didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Biting back his laughter, Methos watched a fiery red blush rise from Ryan’s cheeks straight down his neck. Score one to MacLeod.

Though outwardly he maintained his annoyed front, Methos was secretly pleased. The byplay was very typical of MacLeod and Ryan’s normal teasing.

Ritchie opened his mouth to say something, but then Ryan’s gaze left Methos and MacLeod to settle on someone approaching their table. Methos hated to sit with his back to the door like this, but with the over-crowding, he’d really had no choice tonight. 

A quick glance showed that it was Dawson who’d distracted Ryan. 

Ritchie greeted the graying Watcher with genuine affection, “Hey, Joe! You rule, man! That was some show!”

“You were wonderful, Joe,” Mac seconded.

“Robert Johnson would have been envious,” Methos added, reaching over to clear their coats away so Dawson would have a place to sit.

“Thanks, guys,” Joe blushed, taking a seat. 

Seeing that Joe’s brown tee shirt was as drenched as their own, Methos guessed that his friend’s throat was probably parched from all that singing he’d done. Without a word, Methos passed his half-finished beer to Dawson.

“You’re a lifesaver,” Joe acknowledged, draining the pint and reaching for the pitcher.

“It’s a big crowd tonight,” Joe commented, eyeing the standing room only audience.

“Good music has a way of doing that,” MacLeod said.

They fell quiet for a time, all four of them seeming to just enjoy being with each other.

Finally, Ritchie broke the quiet with, “So, Joe, you didn’t tell me why I was gonna be needing to borrow your couch tonight. I hope the offer’s still open.”

“It is,” Joe assured, his eyes glittering with amusement as he asked, “So they told ya, huh?”

“Yeah. Gotta admit, I still can’t believe it,” Ryan said.

Joe nodded, “You’ll get used to the idea. It sure beats having them snarling at each other every five minutes.”

“I suppose,” Ryan agreed, looking none too sure of that fact.

“We are sitting right here, you know,” Methos reminded.

“Of course, you are. We wouldn’t…what’s up?” Joe broke off whatever he’d been about to say to ask as MacLeod, Ryan and Methos all simultaneously straightened in their chairs and began searching the crowd.

“You expecting anyone?” Methos asked of MacLeod. The Highlander was like Immortal Central. Every one of their kind seemed to have some type of business with MacLeod.

“No,” Mac answered, his dark eyes roving the bar. “Ritchie?”

All that annoying Howdy Doodie enthusiasm was absent from Ryan’s attitude as he shook his head ‘no.’ Suddenly, Ritchie looked as tense and deadly as any Immortal in a first contact situation.

Taking a deep breath, Methos tried to focus on the new signature, but it was difficult to filter it out, what with Mac and Ritchie sitting so close. Whoever it was, he or she was fairly powerful, and probably a few millennia old. The buzz had that kind of ancient resonance to it. The stranger wasn’t even in sight yet and the room was ringing the way it usually would when someone with Cassandra or Kronos’ age arrived.

Methos’ guts constricted at the very thought of Cassandra. He didn’t think she’d be gunning for him, but he hadn’t survived five millennia by taking his safety for granted. Still, he’d been in Cassandra’s company within the last year – recently enough for him to recognize the signature of her presence. This did not feel like her.

Normally, this would be Methos’ cue to leave. However, there would be no fast exit tonight. There were so many people jammed into the club to hear Joe play that it had to be a fire violation. The crowd would make it impossible for him to get to the backdoor unnoticed. He’d rather face a hostile unknown with a wall at his back and MacLeod at his side than to brave the crowd with a vulnerable back.

So Methos sat stone still in his chair, feeling every drop of sweat slide down his face and back as he waited. 

The mob blocking the area between the tables was still the same bunch of inebriated Parisians that had been there all night. Even so, the power of that ancient signature seemed to intensify, indicating a lessening of distance.

“It feels like…Darius,” Duncan said softly, still searching the crowd.

Methos sighed, “ _I_ feel like Darius to you. It’s the age you’re sensing, Highlander.”

“Aye, you’re right,” Mac admitted, looking chagrined.

“I don’t feel anything weird,” Ryan said.

“You will, in time,” MacLeod assured.

“Well, I’ll be damned…” it was Joe Dawson who caught sight of the newcomer first. The stranger had taken the long way around the room and approached through the milling crowd from the bar, rather than from the door, where all three Immortals were looking.

Methos, MacLeod, and Ryan all swung around to face this new threat…

After five thousand years, you saw a lot of faces. They had a tendency to blur in memory, particulars fading until Methos could barely recall the color of his first wife’s eyes. This face, however, would never fade. Even now, it had a starring role in his late night horror show. 

This was the type of situation he’d spent three thousand years ducking out of rooms and leaving his life behind him at a second’s notice to avoid. The breath literally caught in his lungs as he met those icy blue eyes. Twenty feet away and they still froze him with dread.

The flashback hit like a front snap kick to the groin. Those same blue eyes, mad with hate and terror, long honey blond curls snapping in the wind as the blood drenched youth stood poised at a cliff edge. The command _Submit or die!_ was ringing through the freezing air as the beautiful manchild glanced behind him, saw the three thousand foot drop at his back, returned his frantic gaze to Death approaching…and purposefully stepped backwards off the cliff…

“Alex Longford,” Joe identified the newcomer, respect and amazement creeping into his tone.

“ _That’s_ the guy you’re comparing to Darius?” Ryan stage whispered. “He’s just a kid, for God’s sake! How’d he even get in here? I got carded.”

“Appearances can be deceiving, Ritchie,” MacLeod voiced the comment Methos was too stunned to make.

“How old was he when he died?” Dawson asked in the same undertone they’d all been employing. “Sixteen?”

Methos stared at this vision from his past, trying to view him as the others at his table did. He supposed if you didn’t know this Immortal’s history, you might mistake him for any teenage kid, if you looked too quickly. The man who called himself Alex Longford these days was a head shorter than Ritchie, a curly honey blond, well built for his age beneath his black leather coat, but a teenager all the same. He was also more than 3600 years old.

“Methos?” Mac whispered.

“Adam,” Joe said, sotto voce, “you worked on his Chronicle for a while. How old was he when he died?”

His mind grasped onto the question, the logic of cold facts far preferable to the madness of memory.

“His chronicle says sixteen, Avignon, France, 1235,” Methos croaked.

“You sayin’ that’s not right?” Gods, now even Ryan was seeing through him.

“It’s about three thousand years off. And he was fourteen when he became Immortal, not sixteen.” Not taking his eyes from the approaching Immortal, Methos softly informed, “Like all old ones, the Macedonian has had many lives.”

“The…Holy shit!” Dawson exclaimed, his excitement at meeting this living piece of history thick as the smoke in the air.

“Why’s that sound familiar?” Ryan asked. Burdened by a useless, twentieth century public school education and lack of interest on his own part, the reference was apparently meaningless to him.

“The Macedonian was another name for Alexander the Great,” Mac supplied, properly awed, despite the question that followed, “You sure about that?”

“Totally,” Methos answered, barely breathing at this point.

“Every biography I’ve ever read said that Alexander the Great died at age 32,” Joe said. “Longford could never pass for that.”

Methos shrugged, “You’d be amazed what people will overlook when a general is winning all his battles. Besides, he looked quite different dressed for war. The sun, cold and wind of campaigns make everyone look years older.”

“Yeah, but…he’s almost a foot shorter than Ritchie,” Joe protested.

“Most of the world was a foot shorter than Ritchie back then,” Methos reminded. “I was considered a giant for millennia. Now, I’m just a little above average. In another millennia or two, I’ll probably be a dwarf.”

“You’re kiddin’ me, right? This kid is Alexander the Great?” Ryan sneered, still not seeming able to get past that fact.

“That _kid_ conquered all the known world within ten years,” Methos corrected.

Joe added, “He’s done the same thing in the virtual reality computer game industry these last ten years. Longford’s not quite Bill Gates, but he’s certainly a ruling force in the cyberworld. You know that Alien Invaders game you were addicted to a few years back, Ritchie? That was Longford’s baby.”

“No shit? He still looks like a kid,” Ryan determined.

Surprisingly enough, it was MacLeod who corrected Ryan, “I don’t think so, Ritch. Most teenagers don’t move like that.”

Of course, Mac, with his martial arts expertise, would notice something like that.

The young man hadn’t walked like a conqueror when Methos last saw him, but few had when captured by the Horsemen. There was no mistaking that arrogant, macho strut now, though. MacLeod had it, as had Kronos, Grayson, and a dozen other Alpha males who knew their worth. It should have been incongruous on one so young, but the person in question carried it off admirably.

Alexander Longford approached their table like he had a battalion of troops at his back, like it wasn’t any problem for a child his age to confront three adult men. The truly disturbing part about the youth was that facing them wouldn’t be a problem. This five foot two bundle of post pubescent attitude was the reason the Horsemen were finally put out of commission two and a half millennia ago. 

“It’s been a long time, Methullius,” Longford greeted them in English.

The language choice troubled Methos. The conversation at their table had been too low to be overheard. If this were a chance meeting, the other Immortal should have spoken in the native tongue of the land or the last language they’d shared. 

Logford’s soft, upper-class British tone was totally at odds with the hate blazing in those crystal eyes. At least fate had spared Longford eternity with a child’s voice. He’d been taken after his voice changed, but not by much.

Methos stared at that wide face with its fine nose and strong square jaw, and wondered how he had ever seen a bed slave there. There was no softness to the features, no prettiness. This was the face of death, hard and ungiving and, yet, the youth was still beautiful, the way a lion was beautiful before it struck.

“A very long time,” Methos agreed. Swallowing hard, he decided to take the lead here. “Would you care to join me and my friends?”

“To drink to old times?” the scoffing rejoinder was not that of a teenager, rather, that of the general this man had once been.

Taking a deep breath, Methos struggled to ignore the tone. “If you like.”

“Would you really like for me to share my memories of our old times with your friends, Methullius?” Longford threatened.

For a noisy bar, the silence that followed that question seemed unnaturally complete. Methos could see in the other ancient Immortal’s eyes how very much he’d enjoy such an illuminating discussion.

“If that’s what you want. Or we could talk about the present, the changes we’ve made in our lives,” Methos suggested, sweating like he was mincing words with Kronos. He could feel all three of his companions watching him – Mac and Joe with informed concern, Ryan with complete incomprehension.

“I don’t care about the present. Our business has to do with the past - an old account that is long overdue. It’s time we settled the score,” Longford stood close to their table, speaking in a low voice that would barely carry to the laughing women on the other side of Ryan. The blondes both seemed absorbed in the conversation at the table beside them, completely oblivious to the drama being enacted several feet away.

Methos gulped. He’d known the challenge was inevitable. What man wouldn’t want revenge on the person responsible for condemning him to eternity locked in the body of a child?

“The man who wronged you is dead,” Methos softly offered in classical Latin, with no hope of being believed. He switched to Latin because this was a conversation that should not be taking place in so public a venue. A glance at Mac showed he understood. Joe also seemed to be following. More than half of the Watchers’ Chronicles were in Latin, so that was no great surprise. It was only Ryan who couldn’t keep up, and that was just as well, “I’m sorry for his offenses against you, truly I am, but…I haven’t used that name or sought out that particular company in over two thousand years.”

“Strange, a mutual acquaintance saw you in that company just last spring,” Longford countered in the same language, the contempt in his frosty gaze unbearable. 

It had been too long a time since Methos had suffered such looks from strangers. He was no longer inured to them. Perhaps Kronos had been right. The life of a scholar and Watcher had left him weak. Of course, the fact that his former victim’s condemnation had nothing on his own only accentuated the sting of it. With the exception of two of the three men sitting at this table, it never mattered to Methos what anyone thought of him because they were usually clueless as to who and what he really was. The fact that Longford had every right to look at him that way made it all the harder to endure.

“Or are you calling her a liar?” Longford challenged when Methos made no response.

So, Cassandra had gotten her revenge, after all. She hadn’t wanted to risk MacLeod’s wrath herself, so she’d shared her discoveries with someone with a better chance of exacting vengeance – which was how Longford had known to address him in English. Hell, it was possible that Cassandra had told Longford everything about everyone at this table, including Joe’s involvement with the Watchers. This was not an Immortal to whom Methos would have entrusted such a secret. He hoped Cassandra had shown some discretion, but didn’t think it likely. 

“No,” Methos shook his head, “we both know she doesn’t lie.”

Longford leaned in close, nothing the least bit warm in the baring of his teeth, which no doubt was intended as a smile, “So, let us dispense with this foolishness and go outside for a private discussion.”

“You don’t have to do this,” MacLeod interrupted in a completely non-confrontational tone. His Latin was rough, but Methos had never heard his friend sound more reasonable or persuasive in his life. “The man you hate died three thousand years ago. This man is a scholar and a Healer. He…”

“He laughed as he gutted my three year old sister on his sword,” Longford said in the same calming tone Mac had used. He was leaning in over their table, so even in the unlikely chance that the patrons at the surrounding tables would understand colloquial Latin well enough to translate; it was highly unlikely they’d hear anything.

Methos squeezed his eyes shut at the reminder, seeing the child even after all this time. There was no way to explain that the death he’d given had been a kinder fate than what Kaspian would have done to the little girl. Methos didn’t even attempt to make a defense. A man who could run with that kind of monster had no business seeking understanding from his victims.

“He is not that man any longer,” Joe entered the discussion, his Latin nowhere near as understandable as MacLeod’s.

“I don’t care if he became Christ after he left our holding. He will die for what he did to my family, for what he stole from me,” Longford hissed low. 

To Methos’ shock Mac still tried to defend him, even after hearing that atrocity, “Killing him won’t bring them back.”

“But it may help them rest better…it may help me rest better. He stole my world, mortal life and manhood that day. His miserable neck is paltry recompense, but he will forfeit his head for what he did,” Longford swore.

Methos opened his eyes and looked up at his accuser. It was a small point, perhaps, but for the sake of accuracy, he had to remind, “I didn’t take your life. It was you who made that choice.”

“It was that or a fate worse than death,” Longford shot back. “Which would you have chosen?”

“The same I always have – life. My profession isn’t death anymore. The things of which you speak happened nearly four thousand years ago, in another world and age. I’m not the same man I was then, any more than you are. We can leave this in the past where it belongs…” Methos began.

“Of all the things I thought you, Methullius, a coward was never one of them. Cassandra said you had grown weak, that you had bedazzled good men to do your fighting for you,” Longford sneered.

“A desire for peace is not weakness,” Methos corrected, holding onto his patience because to lose his anger in an argument like this could be disastrous. They were in a public place. With thirty-six hundred plus years of hate burning in him, Methos couldn’t count on Longford to be rational. If the man lost his cool and attacked him here, no matter who was the victor, everyone in this bar could be injured or killed when the power of a Quickening as old as theirs was released.

“Call it what you will. There can be no peace with evil. We will fight. It’s what we do. And you will pay for the lives you stole,” Longford insisted.

Those who deemed Latin a dead language would never have done so had they heard the passion of Longford’s argument. Though the scholar in Methos could appreciate the elegance of hearing this language spoken in its native fluidity, instead of being massacred by a priest, he wished that the content of the words had been less disturbing.

“Very well,” Methos conceded, recognizing that there would be no reasoning with the man.

“Outside, now,” Longford’s chin gestured towards the door.

“I’m afraid I have a previous commitment tonight,” Methos denied.

“She said that you would be too craven to fight me, that you would run,” Longford sneered.

There was a part of him that wanted very much to show this fool how wrong both Cassandra and he were about him, but…that would violate every promise he’d ever made to himself concerning this type of confrontation. Stamping down hard on his anger, Methos took a deep breath and challenged, “Would the man you knew as Death be afraid to fight a child?”

“You dare…!”

“I do not fear you, Alexander of Macedon. And I will not run. But this is neither the time nor the place. Dawn is best for this type of discussion, is it not?” Methos offered.

“You will run…” Longford accused.

“I will not run,” Methos promised with what he hoped was flawless sincerity.

“Dawn, then,” Longford said, his eyes seeming to regret the decision already.

Methos nodded. He loved men of honor. They were so predictable. Dawn would give him plenty of time to put a continent between them. 

Needing to at least make a show of intent, Methos asked, “Where?”

“The footbridge off de Gaul,” Longford said.

Methos gulped. It was coincidence, of course. There was no way Longford or anyone else could have known that that was the location where Kalas had come an inch from taking Methos’ head. He hadn’t even told MacLeod the embarrassing details of that challenge. So how…

It had to be coincidence…only…

Methos had lived in a time when there was no such thing as coincidence. A shiver ran through him as he realized the only way Longford could have found out those details – the witch Cassandra. Time was when Methos had been able to discern an enemy’s secrets in similar fashion. Science and cool reason had replaced magic in his world, but there were some like Cassandra who were still adept at the old ways. Kronos had scoffed at her magics, but Methos had known better.

“The footbridge at dawn,” Methos agreed, doing his best to disguise how unnerved he was by the choice.

“If you do not show, I will find you,” Longford warned.

Methos had lived too long to allow his sarcasm sway at a moment such as this, but he couldn’t help thinking that he’d be very happy to wait another four thousand years for the Macedonian to catch up with him again.

“I’ll be there,” he promised with the same sincerity millions of his gender used when they swore that they’d respect a woman in the morning.

Longford’s gaze turned from Methos to the other men at his table. Switching to English, the apparent teenager said, “Bid adieu to your friend. It will be a long while before you see him again.”

“You need to lighten up, man,” Ritchie, who hadn’t followed a word of the confrontation, sassed. 

Methos had to hand it to the kid. There weren’t many men on the planet with the nerve to mouth off to a man who’d razed or sacked more cities than Ryan could name. But, then again, smarts had never been MacLeod’s student’s long suite.

“And you need to choose your friends better, youngster,” Longford replied, with the expression and tone of a man at least Dawson’s apparent age.

“Why you…” Ritchie started to rise from his seat.

MacLeod grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back down. “Let it go, Ritch. You got what you came for,” the Highlander said to Longford, “now get out of here.”

The Macedonian’s frosty gaze settled on MacLeod, “I’ve heard of you, Highlander. It is said that you’re a good man. Why would a man of honor keep such company?”

“How did you know my name?” Mac questioned, switching back to Latin. Methos’ lover’s instincts were nearly flawless. The man knew when caution was necessary.

“I was told to look for Duncan MacLeod and I would find Death in his company. My sources were not mistaken,” Longford answered in the same tongue.

“You and your sources are completely wrong. Death has been dead three thousand years. You can’t judge my friend on mistakes he made millennia ago when he was an entirely different person,” Mac hotly argued, the people at the closest table looking over at his upraised tone, those overhearing no doubt trying to place the hauntingly familiar lingua.

“Speak not of what you know not of. I was there. I am one of the few who has the right to judge him,” Longford rejected. “He was a monster.”

“And what makes you any better? I know what you were. History paints you with the same brush,” MacLeod said. His tone was lower, but his contempt was more pronounced for all of that.

“I was a general and king,” Longford said. “I did not make my life on the blood of children.”

“The people of Thebes and a dozen other towns might have felt differently,” MacLeod, who knew his history, challenged.

“I have no regrets for Thebes or anything else I’ve done. In times of war, men do whatever is necessary. I fought with honor,” Longford countered.

“That’s debatable,” Mac countered.

“You weren’t there. You can’t make that judgment,” Longford made the same complaint Methos had employed himself after Bordeaux. “There are none left with the right to accuse me.” 

Such arrogance in one so young was disconcerting. Methos could see that his lover was ill at ease having this type of argument with what basically amounted to little more than a child. 

“I’m left,” Methos softly interjected. “I lost a good friend at Thebes.”

“Then you can avenge him at dawn,” Longford said.

“Killing you will not bring him back, anymore than killing me will restore your family to you. The dead don’t care. You and I killing each other won’t change anything,” Methos tried again.

“Tomorrow at dawn, Methullius.” Longford turned back to Mac, “You and I will see each other again, no doubt.”

Mac was obviously as unimpressed with meeting Alexander the Great as he’d been upon meeting Lord Byron. MacLeod snorted and said, “Don’t count on it, not if you keep that appointment at dawn.”

Longford’s icy blue glare settled on MacLeod for a long moment. “Your honor is ill served by this association, Highlander. Be careful, lest you be judged by the company you keep.”

“At least my companion has the honor to regret the mistakes of the past. If I were you, I’d leave now. While you still can,” MacLeod added, something dangerous stirring in his dark eyes.

Astonished, Methos recognized that Mac was completely serious. Even knowing that Methos was in the wrong here, his lover was ready to take on one of the most brilliant generals in history for his sake.

“Till we meet again,” Longford nodded to MacLeod, turned on his heel and vanished into the crowd as quickly as he’d appeared. None of the Immortals at their table dropped their guard until that oppressive ancient Immortal signature completely faded.

“Damn, that’s not good,” Dawson remarked into the abrupt silence at the table.

“What was with the Italian, guys?” Ryan plaintively asked, the utter absurdity of the comment coming as almost comic relief.

“It was Latin, Ritch,” Joe patiently supplied.

“That kid really had a jones for your head, man. What the hell did you do to him?” Ritchie asked, in the same tone he’d use with MacLeod, like whatever was wrong, it had to be some kind of cosmic misunderstanding.

MacLeod intervened with, “We don’t need to get into that now, Ritch.”

“Come on, Mac! Give a guy a break!” Ryan whined. “I couldn’t follow a thing you guys were saying when you started jabbering away. What the hell is going on?”

“Ritch…” MacLeod began.

His nerves snapping, Methos turned on the kid. “You really want to know what I did to him?” Ryan’s eyes widened at his tone and whatever was in his face, but the kid nodded all the same. Only when he’d gotten that response did Methos lean in and continue in a furious whisper, “My comrades and I gang raped his oldest sister in front of him, put his mother, father, grandmother and younger siblings to the sword, then we spent four hours cutting into him to see how many wounds it would take before he became one of us. After that, I’d planned on taking him as a bed slave, but he decided that flinging himself off a cliff was a more attractive proposition. In retrospect, I can’t say that I blame him.”

The nauseated expression that came over Ryan’s face was fully worth the effort. The freckles stood out on Ritchie’s suddenly pasty face like smallpox eruptions.

“You…you knew about all this, Mac?” Ryan turned to his teacher, utterly lost. “Before you hit the sheets?”

Methos was impressed. Somehow, MacLeod managed to hold that horrified gaze and answer in a near normal voice, “I knew.”

Ryan’s next words were hardly surprising, “How the hell could you love someone like that? Christ, weren’t you the guy tellin’ me that you don’t talk to evil, you destroy it? That stuff-”

“Happened three thousand years ago. It has nothing to do with the man we know,” MacLeod insisted.

“Yeah, right. Can you spell hypocrisy?” Ryan sneered.

“Ritchie…” MacLeod pleaded.

“Forget it. I’m outta here.” Ryan started to climb to his feet, but Joe reached out to stop him.

“Cool down, Ritchie,” Dawson counseled.

“What? You, too? What is it with you guys? I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone here. Did either of you just hear what he admitted to?” Ryan demanded.

“We heard,” Joe said. “But that was a long time ago. You can’t…”

“Oh, yes, I can. I mightn’t know shit about Latin or Macadamians, but I know you don’t hang with killers. See you around, guys.”

“Don’t bother,” Methos said, rising to his feet. The child had not disappointed him. “I’ll be leaving now. Take care of yourself, Joe.”

He made a blind grab for his coat, was on his feet and into the crowd before MacLeod had fumbled out of his chair.

Methos heard MacLeod’s rumble of, “We’ll talk about this later, Ritchie,” before the noise swallowed him up.

It took him almost three minutes to make it to the door through the mob of laughing, smoking patrons. 

After the heat and smoky clamor of the packed club, the bone-chilling air of the silent winter night was a shock. The freeze was so intense that it was actually hard to draw breath. It was late, the traffic unnaturally light, no doubt due to the numbing cold. The silence seemed absolute and accusative.

His heart was pounding like he’d just been run to ground, which he supposed he had been, figuratively speaking.

The temperature being the least of the shocks he’d endured tonight, Methos leaned against the brick wall outside and gulped in deep lungfuls of the freezing air. Well, he’d known nothing lasted forever. It was time to put Adam Pierson behind him and move on.

He almost moaned when he felt the familiar buzz of another Immortal approaching from the club entrance. Mac never knew when to leave well enough alone.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” MacLeod asked softly, coming up beside him to lean against the same freezing wall. Mac quickly buttoned up the long black coat he usually left open. Even with the heavy cable knit wool sweater back on, it was too cold out here to leave one’s coat open. 

Methos didn’t even try for politeness. “What?”

MacLeod squarely met his gaze and said, “Me.”

It was Methos who was forced to look away. He was beginning to shake – from the cold, he told himself; although he knew better.

“Come on, the car’s over here,” Mac said, taking his elbow and guiding him between a parked Chevy and Volvo, out into the empty street.

Methos didn’t have the strength to deal with this. It was hard enough to pick up stakes and leave, even after a scene so unpleasant that it made it clear that he couldn’t afford to hang around here any longer. He was used to bad endings, hard as they were. What he didn’t know was how to handle Mac being kind to him, not tonight. 

So, rather than make a fuss, he allowed himself to be steered into the Citroen. 

The silence, unsurprisingly enough, was oppressive, at least from his side of the vehicle. MacLeod was…hard to read – subdued, but not emoting the fury, regret or disgust that Methos would have fully understood and forgiven.

“You can drop me off at my flat,” Methos said, trying for coldness.

“We’re together now. Remember?” Mac said, glancing over from the road. “We’ll stay at your flat, if you prefer, but I’m not leaving you anywhere, not tonight.”

“How can you want to be with me after hearing…?” Methos demanded, hating the emotion in his voice, but unable to do anything about it. 

“I know what you used to be,” Mac said, “and I know what you are now. The two have nothing to do with each other.”

“But…” Methos slammed his mouth shut. Pride would not allow him to continue. Drawing his coat tighter around him to try to halt the shudders he didn’t seem able to control, Methos winced as his sword dug into his outer thigh. He shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable on the icy leather upholstery, or, failing that, to get warm, but neither seemed obtainable. The problems weren’t external.

MacLeod reached out and wordlessly snapped on the heat.

The blast of warm air felt like a lover’s embrace. Methos could have used one right now, but he couldn’t ask for it – would probably never be able to ask Mac for it again after tonight.

“Your place or mine?” Mac questioned as they paused at an intersection on St. Germaine. 

“The barge is fine,” Methos answered.

MacLeod nodded and made the turn. After a few minutes of silence, Mac quietly offered, “You told me about your past yourself. Nothing that was said tonight came as a surprise.”

“It’s…different hearing it from the victim,” Methos pointed out, not understanding MacLeod’s current calm.

“It was…hard to hear, I admit it, but…you are not that man anymore. Did you think I would turn my back on you the first time trouble came to our door?” Mac sounded hurt, of all things.

_Our door_ , Methos gulped, the lump those two simple words put in his throat insurmountable.

When he thought he could speak, he cleared his throat and croaked out, “No man could be blamed for bailing at such a time. What the Macedonian spoke of wasn’t even the worst of it. There are…things that make those deeds pale by comparison. How can I expect you to live with that?”

“I don’t live with it, Methos. You do,” Mac qualified. “You say you don’t feel guilt anymore, but I know what keeps you awake at night. The past is dead. We’ve both got to let it go.”

“That’s easier said than done, Highlander,” Methos said, staring out the window. He saw none of the sights passing there, not the lights of Paris, not even the Eiffel Tower glowing in the distance. All he could see was the parade of victims who haunted his dreams at night.

“No,” Mac said after a quiet time, “it’s not.”

Hearing the deeper meanings in the troubled tone, Methos forced his gaze back to his friend. “Not what?”

“Easily said. None of this is easy – for either of us, nor should it be.”

“Then why bother?” Methos asked the same question he’d needed answered from the start of their affair.

Mac’s broad chest heaved a sigh. It was a deep and weary sound. “Because you’re worth it. Because what you are has nothing to do with what you were. And because I love you.”

Having nothing to say to that, providing he was even capable of speech after such a declaration, Methos turned back towards his window.

They pulled up to the barge fifteen minutes later. It was all Methos could do to force himself out of his seat. He felt exhausted and battered, not up to the confrontation he knew must follow.

As he stepped from the warmth of the Citroen, a cold wind ripped at his face, dashing a hard wetness against it. He paused on the beginning to slick cobblestones to stare up at the pinkish sky. It was snowing again.

“Ah, snow again,” MacLeod echoed his thought, coming to stand beside him to the right of the gangplank. The man looked like a model in some trendy ad with the snow sticking in the impossible fan of his eyelashes and catching on his long dark coat. The gothic stones in the wall of the promenade in the background only completed the highly romantic image.

“It feels like it’s been winter forever,” Methos said. 

Spring was just a few weeks away, but when he thought that far into the future, he could not see MacLeod there beside him. It wasn’t just his usual pessimism this time. It might have been fifteen hundred years since he used them, but no student of Myrddid’s could ever totally forget the skills the ancient Immortal taught. On those sleepless nights when Duncan MacLeod would be slumbering warm and safe in his arms and Methos would cast his sight forward to as close a date as this summer, Mac was nowhere in the picture. 

Tonight’s encounter with Longford explained that. MacLeod might be saint enough to forgive Methos his past, but the Highlander would never run with him. That was simply not in his lover’s nature.

But Mac was here now, his for the moment. He had to concentrate on handling this right, so that in the future, if the opportunity to hook up with MacLeod should ever present itself, his running would not have left so sour a taste in the Highlander’s mouth that Duncan would want nothing to do with him.

MacLeod’s hand settled on his back, solid and steady as the man himself, so warm that it made Methos’ flesh ache with longing.

“We’ll get through this,” Mac promised.

“Will we?”

“Yes,” MacLeod insisted. “Come inside. You’re freezing.”

Methos didn’t move, nor did he take his gaze from the sky, even though the falling flakes were making his eyes smart. His ears were already stinging like they were about to shatter from the cold and fall off the sides of his head.

Taking a deep breath, Methos made the first move towards the separation that was needed for both their sakes when he said, “I’m only going in long enough to pack my bag, MacLeod.” 

“You’re gonna run?” After all this time and how well they knew each other, Methos couldn’t understand the shock in his lover’s voice.

"Martinique is lovely this time of year. Have you ever seen it in January?” Methos knew it was a useless attempt, but the part of him that had begun to believe in this man insisted that he make the effort, that he not make Mac’s choices for him.

MacLeod ignored his question. Gripping Methos by the upper arms, the Highlander turned him around until Methos had no choice but to lower his dripping face and meet the other man’s gaze. “I know that you do not fear him. Why would you run?”

Methos sighed. “You’re wrong, MacLeod. I do fear him. I fear them all.”

The expression of blank incomprehension Mac offered him was worthy of Ryan. “I’ve seen you fight. You’re not a coward.”

“It isn’t about cowardice, Duncan. It’s about fire. I told you the first day we met, I don’t have the passion anymore,” Methos tried to explain.

“And I’ve seen you fight,” Mac stubbornly insisted. “You’ve got as much fire as any of us.”

“You’ve seen me fight – for you,” Methos qualified. He’d fought three challenges in the past three years, all of them for MacLeod’s sake.

“So what you’re saying is that you care enough to die defending me, but not yourself? A man doesn’t survive to your age without being able to protect himself, Methos.”

“And if this were some headhunter come for a trophy killing, you’d be right. I could and would kill him in a second, but…”

“But?” MacLeod still sounded bewildered.

“Can’t you understand? There is no good outcome to my facing Longford or any of the others.”

“I’m not following you,” MacLeod said, still confused, but the hardness that had come with Methos’ announcement of leaving left his features.

“I am not you, Duncan MacLeod. I have no reason to expect to be the victor in trial by combat. If there is anything like divine justice, I will lose. I wronged this man – horribly. If I take his head, it is just adding another wrong onto my list of transgressions. If I had honor, I’d let him take mine, but…I don’t want to die.”

“My God, man…” MacLeod’s grip tightened on his shoulders. From the storm raging across those chiseled features, Methos half expected to be flung into the Seine like so much offal, but instead of pushing him away, Mac pulled him closer. In seconds, Methos found himself wrapped tight in a bear hug, barely able to breathe.

It was what his soul had been needing all night long. Despite his resolve to leave for both their sakes, Methos clung to MacLeod’s muscular frame, leeching the other man’s warmth into his own shuddering form.

After what felt like a mere moment, but must have been closer to five minutes, Mac pulled back a bit. 

Looking up at him, the Highlander said, “And you call yourself without honor. I…misjudged you. I’m sorry.”

“Yet you’re doing it again,” Methos pointed out, too tired to be anything but snappish. He stepped free of MacLeod’s embrace, knowing he could never go through with leaving if there were actual physical contact between them. “This isn’t any noble decision on my part. I’m just…tired of the senseless slaughter. If I have to run to avoid adding another victim to my curriculum vitae, I will.”

“He challenged you here,” Mac protested. “You didn’t go hunting Longford’s head; he came for yours. And this one is hardly an innocent victim. Dante put him in the inner circle of Hell, didn’t he?”

“And where do you suppose your Dante would have put me?” Methos countered. “Alex Londford has a right to want my head. If he is a monster, than I am his Victor Frankenstein.”

“Longford has a right to want vengeance on the man who wronged him. You are not that man, not anymore.”

“Do you think that matters to him, MacLeod? He watched his entire family die before his eyes. He chose to fling himself to his death to escape us, not knowing that by doing so, he would condemn himself to eternity as an adolescent. He has a lot to hate me for.”

MacLeod was silent for a minute before gently offering, “Joe told me that you had reason to hate Darius. You didn’t spend the last fifteen hundred years trying to kill him.”

“Longford’s demon is no Darius. There was no mystical transformation in my case, Mac. I’m just a man…a very flawed one at that. And I did try to kill your Darius,” Methos corrected, needing this man to see him clearly and know what he was dealing with. “I came a hair’s breadth away from taking his head.”

“What stopped you?” Mac asked, seeming genuinely interested, not at all outraged by the idea of Methos hunting his mentor.

“What does it matter now?” Methos asked. There had already been too many side trips into his past tonight. All he longed for was blessed oblivion…and some more time with Duncan MacLeod.

Neither seemed an option tonight. The moment Mac got that tender look on his face, Methos knew he was doomed to give the man whatever he wanted.

“It matters to me,” MacLeod said.

“It’s nothing I’m proud of.” Sometimes Methos felt that he ought to prefix every discussion of his past with that line.

“Shall I tell you about the time I cowered on holy ground because I was too afraid to fight the man who’d just taken my teacher’s Quickening?” MacLeod asked.

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live, Duncan. Fighting someone whom you know you do not have the skills to survive isn’t brave; it’s stupid. You live and grow stronger - that’s all that matters.”

“So, about the time you almost killed Darius…”

Methos drew a deep breath and got it over with, “He would not meet me off holy ground. I’d tried twelve times to challenge him; he always refused. I finally caught him off sacred ground – after nearly eighty years of waiting.”

“And?”

“He was living up in that monastery where you left Ursa. A fever struck the community that year. Scores of people died in the nearest town within a three week period. When I came upon Darius, he was caring for a group of sick orphan children. I ask you, MacLeod,” Methos laughed without humor, “could it possibly have been worse? But I was determined. I hardened my heart to the children and forced him outside. There was no fight. He just sank to his knees before me in the pouring rain and mud of the courtyard.”

Methos could still see the brown-frocked monk kneeling at his feet in the mire with a blade at his throat, Darius’ red hair plastered against his head as the rain pounded down on them both.

“And?” Mac prompted.

“He said he was sorry for killing Myrddid and asked one favor in my old friend’s name – that I get the children back to his fellow monks. He was kneeling there at my feet with a blade to his throat…and all he could worry about were a bunch of pewling brats who probably wouldn’t last out the night.” Methos shook his head, still unable to comprehend that type of selflessness.

“What did you do?” Mac asked.

Methos found himself gravitating closer to MacLeod as the other man’s hand settled in the center of his back again. He blew out a deep breath, the steamy fog of which caressed Mac’s face before dissipating, then self-consciously admitted, “What do you think I did? I sheathed my sword and told him to go back inside. When he got to his feet Darius…”

“Yes?”

“He thanked me for the stay of execution and asked where and when he should meet me to complete our business after the children were safe. Mac, Myrddid was the finest man I’d ever met, but not even he would have had the…” Methos shrugged, “I still don’t know what to call it – Nerve? Stupidity? Honor? - to make that kind of offer. Somehow that murdering barbarian had become something greater than the holy man he’d killed.”

“What did you do?” MacLeod asked.

Methos snorted. “Darius had a head when you met him; didn’t he?”

“Methos…”

“I ran, all right? I got on my steed and put fifteen miles between us before I even slowed down.”

His testy response only seemed to please MacLeod. 

“What are you smiling at, MacLeod?” Methos challenged at last, tempted to push the other Immortal into the icy Seine to remove that idiotic expression.

“You. You don’t know yourself at all; do you?” Mac asked, reaching for his face.

Methos batted the hand away. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why is it that you only see the bad in yourself and not the wonderful?” Mac asked. The moronic smile was gone, but Methos was beginning to wish for it back. It was far preferable to the serious expression Mac wore now.

“Will you please remove those rose colored glasses?” Methos demanded. “I am not a hero. I am never going to be one. If I have done any good in my life, it was for my own selfish reasons.”

“Doctoring abused slaves in the 1800s was selfish?” MacLeod asked.

“How did you know about that?” Methos demanded, not knowing why he felt embarrassed that Mac knew about that period of his life. It wasn’t something he was ashamed of, and yet, it wasn’t something he ever spoke of. Search his mind as he would, he couldn’t recall ever sharing that particular confidence with MacLeod. All he could recall telling him was that he’d been a doctor.

“That time Jack Shapiro had Joe shot. You told Dawson when he was recuperating. Or were you lying to him?” 

He had to give his friend points for asking the question. At least Mac knew him well enough now not to take everything he said at face value.

Methos sighed. “It wasn’t a lie.”

Dawson had had two bullets in him and been suffering with a 103° fever when he’d asked about Methos’ past experiences as a doctor. Realizing that the dank cellar they’d been forced to treat Joe in was hardly encouraging to either a patient’s recovery or his confidence in his physician, Methos had told Dawson about some of his most amazing cures, studiously neglecting to mention the scores he’d lost to gangrene and septicemia. Who would have thought Joe would have been coherent enough to remember something like that, much less relay it to someone?

“I don’t see how something like that could be seen as selfish. In my book, it’s pretty damn heroic,” Mac said. 

“Everything’s heroic in your book, MacLeod,” Methos groused, sticking his hands deep into his pockets and hunching down into his coat. Between the wind, snow and emotional shocks of the night, he was feeling fairly battered right now.

“There isn’t anyone who would-”

“Oh, for…” Methos interrupted. “That was only one of the thousands of hats I’ve worn. I’ve been a priest and I’ve been a prostitute. I’ve been a doctor and a killer, soldier and diplomat…You name it, and I’ve probably done it at least once. But no matter what it was I did, I did it because I wanted to – for me, not for others.”

“What about Silas?” MacLeod demanded. “You’re not going to pretend that you wanted his head?”

“Low blow, MacLeod,” Methos hissed, turning his back on MacLeod so his lover wouldn’t see how hard that question hit him.

“You are not evil, not anymore,” Mac insisted, coming up behind him and slipping his arms around his waist. 

Short of elbowing MacLeod in the stomach, his only other option for freedom was a swim in the freezing river. And…Methos didn’t want those arms to leave him. If there was a way he could arrange it, he’d love to take those arms and that embrace everywhere he went for the remainder of his days.

So, instead of breaking free, Methos leaned back, trusting his weight to the warm furnace behind him. Mac hooked his chin over Methos’ left shoulder and tightened his hold. After a few moments of just standing there in silence feeling like a fool, Methos took his just-beginning-to-warm hands out of his pockets and placed them on top of MacLeod’s. Methos couldn’t feel their joined hands through his thick coat. It was so cold out here; he could barely feel Mac beneath his palms and they were touching skin to skin there.

They stood that way silently watching the wind-swept snow fall into the black river for a long time. 

Finally, Methos said, “I appreciate what you’re trying to say, Mac, but two wrongs will never make a right. My killing him will prove nothing.”

“And what will running prove?” Mac quietly questioned. “If you run, all you will do is confirm his opinion of you.”

“And my removing his head from his shoulders will somehow improve his opinion of me?” Methos countered. He generally had some foggy idea of how MacLeod’s outdated mode of chivalry was coloring a muddied issue, but today Methos was totally lost. “If I leave Paris tonight, Longford and I will both live. If I stay and fight, one of us will die. How is that better?”

“If you run, you will lose your life here. Cassandra has spoken to him. He will know about Seacouver. It won’t be safe for you to return there, either.”

“I am painfully aware of that fact, MacLeod,” Methos rasped out, dropping his gaze down to their linked hands, the knowledge that this might be the last time they would be free to see each other like this heavy on his breaking heart.

“You would let him take everything you love from you without a fight?” Mac asked.

“I took everything he loved from him once. They say that turnabout is fair play.”

“Don’t quote platitudes at me, Methos. This is our life you’re throwing away here!” though the words were said in anger, MacLeod’s arms pulled him tighter.

“Why are you tormenting me like this?” Methos demanded. “Do you think I want to give this up? Do you think it’s easy?”

“I think it’s time to stop running,” MacLeod said. “You have got to put the past behind you. You can’t do that if you cut and run every time someone from your past shows up.”

“So I should take the head of innocent people whose only crime was being in the path of rabid dogs in the past?” Methos asked. “I thought you, of all people, would understand why I can’t kill him.”

“Methos, this man is not innocent-” 

“He was when the Horsemen met him. He was barely more than a child. You know what nutrition was like even a hundred years ago. Most of the time, a man’s sexual equipment didn’t even start working until he was close to twenty. Longford’s voice had changed, but…he hadn’t reached complete sexual maturity yet. He never will. He has lived almost four thousand years, commanded armies, reigned over nations, but he will never experience an orgasm. How forgiving would you be of the man who did that to you?”

He heard Mac hiss in a breath behind him. “How can you know all that? You said he killed himself rather than come to your bed.”

What a refined way of describing rape, Methos thought, only belatedly realizing that he had thrown doubt on his own probity again. 

For once, talking about the past was preferable to dealing with the present. Taking a deep breath, Methos softly answered, “I was in Greece before he took Thebes. One of his camp whores was visiting an associate of mine. She bragged about Alexander the Third’s impotence. Mac, I was many things back then, most of them evil, but…even when I was a Horseman, I would not have inflicted that upon him. I would have kept him as my slave a year or two and then either taken his Quickening or made him one of us, had he pleased me enough to keep him around, but…even Death would not have condemned him to that.”

“You didn’t. He did it to himself,” Mac argued.

“He didn’t know…”

“Methos,” Mac softly interrupted, “it wouldn’t have mattered if he did. He still would have jumped.”

“How can you know that?” he demanded.

“Because I would have done the same thing. He made that choice. You might have driven him to it, but in the end, he still chose to take his own life,” Mac said.

“So how does that make what I did to him any different than what Byron did to Mike Paladini? You thought Byron worthy of death.” Methos reminded, completely lost. Mac had never had a sliding scale of justice. What was wrong for a stranger was just as wrong for his lovers, as Ingrid Henning had learned the hard way.

“You weren’t any different than Byron – four thousand years ago. Now…you’re not even in the same ball park. That’s why you can’t run, Methos. That arrogant bastard does not have the right in this. You are not the same man you were then, anymore than Darius was the man who slew your friend Myrddid.”

“So I should cut Longford’s head off because I hurt him too deeply for him to forgive me?”

“ _He_ challenged you,” MacLeod reminded, turning Methos around to face him. “You tried to bury the hatchet; he wouldn’t accept your peace offering.”

“Why should he?” Methos challenged, still not getting this. Mac was always on the side of injured innocents. 

“For the same reason that you spared Darius. For the same reason I didn’t kill Kage. The people we confronted were no longer the same men who wronged us. Killing them would have made as much sense as killing a stranger on the street to avenge our dead.”

“MacLeod, I didn’t kill Darius because I was afraid to!” Methos spat, his teeth chattering so badly now that he’d stepped away from MacLeod’s shielding warmth that the words barely made sense.

“What do you mean you were afraid to?” MacLeod asked.

They really were like creatures from different planets, Methos recognized. As soon as either of them thought they were beginning to understand what made the other tick, they would inevitably discover that they had it all wrong. And yet, even with the mental misunderstandings, they still had a visceral comprehension of each other, like their souls groked each other even if their minds couldn’t even agree upon a common language. It made his head ache to think about it.

“It means that I didn’t want to take that Quickening into myself and find myself so changed that I’d offer my neck to the first headhunter that came along. I may have had a shameful, bloody adolescence, but for most of the past two thousand years, I’ve liked the man I’ve become. I didn’t want him subsumed in some mystical Quickening,” Methos explained, knowing that his chivalrous lover would never understand.

Surprisingly, Mac didn’t take issue with his statement. Instead, that impossible softness came over those chiseled features as MacLeod all but begged, “So don’t destroy that man now. Longford issued the challenge. You have a right to defend your life. Exert that right.”

“And take his head?” Methos quizzed, testing the waters here. 

“Longford made this challenge. You didn’t.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to live with me if I do it?” Methos asked, genuinely interested in Mac’s answer. “No matter his mental age and development, he is still in the body of a fourteen year old. If I face him, one of us will die. You weren’t even able to kill that murdering brat of Amanda’s after he’d tried to kill you, and we both know that sociopath needed killing. Will your honor allow you to accept a man who would fight to win in such an unevenly matched playing field? Because if he does try to kill me, I will take his head if I am able.”

Mac paled at the reminder of the basic inequity of this challenge. The only color in his face was the cold reddened tip of his dripping nose. “Longford’s body might appear youthful, but he’s a warrior, not a back stabbing child like Kenny. His lack of physical maturity doesn’t exempt him from the rules of the Game. When you challenge someone, you take the risk of losing your head.”

“And if it’s I who loses his head?” Methos questioned. “Our kind do not live to be four thousand years old unless they can fight.”

Mac dropped his gaze. Methos knew how his lover thought. Mac was an expert in the arts of swordplay and self-defense. The Highlander had no doubt taken in the fifty pounds of muscle and foot in height that Methos had on his would-be opponent and drawn the natural conclusion as to whom the victor would be. But Mac had once again forgotten that skill wasn’t everything. Hate could sometimes carry a man farther than all the training in the world.

“He wants my head, Mac. All I want is to live. That gives him an advantage over me. And even if I had the fire for it, this is trial by combat. There isn’t a court on earth that would side with me.”

“You’re wrong, Methos,” MacLeod insisted. “You are not the same man who committed these crimes.”

“So you’re saying I should trust in divine intervention here?” Methos suggested, barely able to keep his sneer in.

“Do not mock me. If you want to put it that way, then yes, I think you should make a stand and trust in divine justice.”

Methos stared into those too earnest features, wishing to every god he’d ever paid lip service to that he could believe in just one thing as strongly as Duncan MacLeod did. “Do you honestly believe that the angels will side with one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Highlander?”

“No, but that man doesn’t exist, not anymore. I believe they will side with the man who spared that desert healer and Darius so long ago. I believe they will back a man who has spent the last two thousand years healing the sick and furthering Man’s knowledge. If you run tonight, you deny that man his right to stand up and say – this is who and what I am now. The past will haunt you forever. You will be a fugitive, skulking out of town every time another Immortal shows up. I love you, but I canna live like that.”

“So, what you’re asking is for me to make a choice – either I do this your way or we’re through?” Methos checked. 

“This isn’t about what I want, Methos. If it were, then neither of us would ever have to fight another challenge,” Mac said.

“Then what is it about?” Methos demanded. “In one syllable, please. I need to understand this.”

“You’ve suffered too much to make the life you have here to throw it all away. We…we’ve just found each other. Give us a chance to grow. I need you in my life, Methos. I need to know that you’re not gonna be slipping out of town every time some ghost from the past shows up. You gave me your word that you wouldn’t desert me. Keep that promise. Make a stand. I swear that I’ll be right there beside you, no matter who comes to our door, no matter what horror story they have to tell.”

There was that _our door_ again, Methos noted. He hadn’t expected MacLeod to pull out that promise, but, staring into that serious, snow-speckled face, Methos encountered something he hadn’t planned on – true fear. Mac was just as upset and afraid of losing him as he was of losing MacLeod.

He took a deep breath and weighed his options. Run, and lose MacLeod’s respect and love, or stay and finish what Death started four millennia ago. There was a time when one more death on his conscience wouldn’t have mattered, but…that time was long past. He’d promised himself he was done with the past, that he would never accept a challenge and end up killing those he’d wronged so long ago, but…MacLeod was right as well. He had a right to a life. He hadn’t issued this challenge. If he ran, he would lose everything that mattered to him, the most important thing being this shivering man standing beside him.

Methos gulped, then warned, “Some night that ghost might be Cassandra at our door, sword in hand. Are you going to stand beside me then?”

Mac didn’t like that thought, that much was plain. But the Highlander met his eyes and nodded, “Yes.”

That single word was as good as a solemn vow.

Methos dropped his gaze. “I…don’t know a lot about right, Mac. You understand it. Can you tell me in good conscience that taking Longford’s head instead of leaving tonight is the right thing to do? I promised myself that I’d never kill them, that I’d bring them no more harm than I’d already inflicted upon them…”

Mac’s rough palmed hand cupped his cheek and guided his eyes back up. That course skinned hand was a burning heat against his freezing flesh. 

“He can walk away,” Mac said. “If he doesn’t…that’s his choice.”

“And that makes it right?” it was a moronic question, but Methos was truly lost. Twenty-one hundred years ago, he’d debated morals with Socrates and Aristotle. He played Devil’s Advocate on a daily basis while teaching doctorial classes in philosophy and ethics, had done so for centuries, but he hadn’t a clue as to what the proper course of action was in this circumstance, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, doing the right thing mattered.

“That’s not usually your line,” Mac gently commented, not answering the question, Methos noted.

“Answer the question.”

MacLeod bit his lower lip for a second, and then nodded. “He doesn’t have the right to punish the you that exists now for the acts of a you that has been dead for millennia. Stay. Face him. Let the field of honor decide who’s got the right in it.”

So Mac didn’t know, either. MacLeod’s best suggestion was that Methos leave it up to the fates that had historically snatched every moment of happiness from him. But if he left, he’d be willingly abandoning the one person who had never failed him yet, the lover who had just sworn to stand beside him, no matter what atrocity from his past showed up. Methos wanted this man too much to even try to make an objective decision.

“Leave it in the hands of the gods?” Methos quizzed. Even when he’d had belief in such beings, Methos hadn’t had the courage to let himself be judged by them. After three hundred years of science, the concept itself seemed nearly as primitive as reading the future in a handful of thrown chicken bones…but, Methos had once possessed the skill to read those bones. And, Duncan MacLeod, who knew right better than any man Methos had met throughout all of history, believed in him.

Mac nodded, something in his eyes seeming to say that MacLeod had no hope of winning here. 

That, more than anything, decided Methos. 

Mac needed to believe that the cause of right would always win. It was one of the most basic components of his lover’s character. And, for whatever reason, Mac had convinced himself that his lover was in the right here.

Methos knew if he sneaked off into the night like he’d done a thousand times in the past, Mac would be crushed. Duncan MacLeod’s righteous arrogance was his most irritating characteristic, but it was the trait that had allowed this young warrior to survive challenges that the Highlander had no realistic hope of winning. His friend needed that surety to survive. Mac had endured so many blows to his faith this last decade: nearly every old friend MacLeod encountered seemed to end up at the end of his sword, and those that didn’t were dropping like flies. Tessa, Darius, Sean Byrnes, Lucas Desiree, Jim Coltec, May Ling Shen and Fitz’s deaths had left MacLeod emotionally bereft and vulnerable; with the exception of Joe Dawson, Methos himself, that smart-mouthed kid Ryan and the none-too-reliable Amanda, Valicourts and Kit, MacLeod had very few members left of the clan he’d made for himself over the long centuries. 

Methos knew that Mac wasn’t like him. Duncan needed people to believe in. With every new loss, a little more of MacLeod’s chivalric ideals seemed to drift away. The man Duncan MacLeod had been even so short a time ago as when Tessa lived would never have taken Ingrid Henning’s life the way this MacLeod had last year. As much as Methos wanted his friend to lose a little of his idiotic, idealistic blinders, Methos didn’t want Mac to become just another of their kind, killing automatically without rhyme or reason. This man was the best of them and Methos was determined to see that MacLeod survived the Game with his optimism and compassion intact. Methos certainly wasn’t going to be the one to take them from Mac, which his leaving just might do.

Though he didn’t understand it, Methos had observed the changes his loving had wrought in this man. Mac was much more his old self, far more given to laughter of late than brooding. If Methos were to cut the emotional legs out from under MacLeod now by running, his friend would doubtless survive, but the blow to MacLeod’s faith might be catastrophic. Methos knew how much it had taken for Mac to enter into their relationship – the leap of faith it had required to open one’s heart to a biblical monster. Add to that the cultural taboos Mac had willingly violated on Methos’ behalf and you had some fairly major emotional investment here. 

Methos might never have asked MacLeod for that type of commitment, but he rejoiced in it. A man this good was careful with whom he became involved. To be deemed worthy by MacLeod of that kind of love, after everything Methos had done in his life, was the most affirming gift Methos had ever been given. To throw that gift back in MacLeod’s face now would be unconscionable.

So…he would stay, against his better judgment. Methos still felt that accepting the challenge was completely wrong, that the only right course was to run and spare both their lives, but…once again Duncan MacLeod was more important to him than morals. He’d stepped aside and let Byron die at this man’s asking. Now he would violate the only solemn vow he’d ever kept in his life for the same reason.

“All right,” Methos agreed, too drained by the events of the night to have any energy left for arguing.

“What?” Mac asked, his teeth visibly chattering.

“I’ll face him.”

A lesser man would have smiled over this victory, but Mac seemed to understand what it had taken. A somber set to his features, MacLeod nodded and rested his hand in the center of Methos’ back. “Thank you. Come on, let’s go inside.”

They’d been arguing on the quay so long that the warmth of the barge was actually painful. Methos’ face, ears and hands smarted like there was acid seeping through his skin. Seeing how red all of Mac’s exposed flesh had turned, Methos wondered if he were as bright.

The mood between them was subdued as they shook off the snow and removed their coats inside the door. The discomfort level was high. Another few minutes out there, and they both would have had severe frostbite. As it was, their hair was soaked, plastered to their skulls by the melted snow, their jeans not in much better shape. 

While Methos made a beeline for the bathroom, Mac moved towards the fireplace. 

Once he’d used the facilities, brushed his teeth and had a quick shower on the off chance that Mac might be feeling romantic after that horrible scene, Methos left the bathroom.

“Love the outfit,” Mac said, giving a small smile as he passed Methos on his own way into the bathroom. 

Methos hadn’t thought anything would make him feel better tonight, but the sheer normality of that teasing comment raised his spirits immensely. He couldn’t help but glance down at the clothing in question. While his red socks, white long john bottoms and Mac’s borrowed, russet Henley were sexy by no stretch of the imagination, they were warm, and that was all that mattered to him at the moment.

Like a moth, Methos was drawn to the crackling fire Mac had started in the fireplace that dominated the center of the barge’s living room area. Startled, he saw that his lover had also left a tray on the nearby coffee table. Teapot, mugs, crème and sugar…Mac had read his mind. After pouring them both a cuppa, Methos stood in front of the hearth, soaking up its life-giving warmth, sipping his tea as he listened to the wind rage outside the portholes and the rush of running water from the bathroom. In the last three months, the barge had become more of a home than he’d had in what felt like forever.

He heard the toilet flush and some more water running, then a couple of minutes later Mac joined him.

Methos swallowed hard as he took in the burnished glow the firelight gave MacLeod’s skin. In that white terrycloth bathrobe, with his damp hair loose around his shoulders, Mac looked positively edible. 

“Thanks,” Mac said, picking up the tea mug Methos had prepared for him.

Methos tilted his head in acknowledgement, watching as Mac settled into the corner of the couch. 

MacLeod sipped his tea for a moment, then patted the cushion beside him. “Join me?”

Carefully balancing his tea mug, Methos sank down beside his friend. The speed with which MacLeod’s arm surrounded his shoulders cheered him. There wasn’t nearly as much conversation as usual, but the night had the feel of the dozens of others they had spent together in this room. Methos was still a little astonished by Mac’s acceptance. After hearing what he’d done to Longford, Methos wouldn’t have blamed his lover if MacLeod had needed some room tonight. But that banding arm was just as affectionate as on any other evening.

After an indecisive moment, Methos took his usual position, shifting so that his back was leaning against Mac’s side and he was nestled in the crook of the Highlander’s arm with the back of his head resting on Mac’s right breast plate. When MacLeod’s right elbow dropped down to circle his chest like it had every other night, Methos released a shuddery sigh and hugged Mac’s arm close to him with his free arm.

“I…need you to know something,” Mac said with ominous solemnity.

“Yes?” he waited, prepared for anything other than the words that followed.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but…I’m very proud of you,” Mac said. 

Methos hissed in a breath, feeling like a knife had just slid between his ribs. He was anything but proud of himself at the moment. He knew Mac had to have some twisted view of his rationale for lingering in order to have made that statement; the Highlander was no doubt proscribing all types of heroic motivations to his decision. 

“Don’t delude yourself, Mac,” Methos warned.

“I’m not. I know that it’s not honor that’s keeping you here, that you’re doing this for me, out of love. Just know…I don’t take that gift lightly.”

Methos squeezed his eyes shut. By the gods, MacLeod did understand…

“We have to get up early. Did you want to just sleep tonight?” Mac asked. 

“I won’t sleep, not tonight,” Methos denied. “You’d better go in without me.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Mac chuckled, squeezing him closer, dropping a quick kiss on the vulnerable spot behind his ear.

Methos gasped under the contrast of the cool shiver that shuddered down his spine and warm spattering of tea on his tummy.

“Sorry,” Mac apologized, taking the mug out of his hand and squishing them both as he reached across Methos to safely deposit it on the coffee table. “Now let’s try it. Some of us don’t like to be distracted the night before battle. What do you normally do?”

Methos realized that this was the first night they’d spent together before either one of them met a challenge. Nerves hit everyone differently. Mac was just trying to figure out how to comfort him. His sarcasm getting the better of him, he sassed, “Leave town.”

To his surprise, that earned him another of those earthy chuckles. Mac asked around his laughter, “Barring that, what would you like to do?”

“Not to sound unimaginative, but I’m rather fond of what we do every night,” Methos quietly answered. Though that kiss MacLeod had given him seemed to indicate sex was where this was leading, he wasn’t taking anything for granted. The memories of those horrible things he’d done were so real to him tonight that Methos was a little repulsed at being inside the skin of the man who’d committed those heinous crimes. He couldn’t imagine wanting to voluntarily touch it.

“I was hoping that you’d say that,” Mac said. Methos could hear the smile in his voice.

The hand that had been resting so innocently against Methos’ sternum slid up to finger Methos’ left nipple through his rust colored shirt. Methos hissed in a breath at the sensation that skyrocketed through him. Not only could he feel it from the inside, but he could see that nipple go hard between Mac’s squeezing fingers and peak up to nearly twice its original size. Its neighbor was located and treated to similar teasing a few minutes later. Meanwhile, MacLeod put that cupid’s mouth of his to use, nuzzling and licking at Methos’ neck until the older Immortal was shaking as bad as he’d been out on the dock a half hour ago.

He felt unworthy of the gentle love play after tonight’s side trip into one of the darker incidents of his sordid past. Methos knew that had he been with any other man, if he were touched at all after tonight’s charming revelations, he would have been violently fucked through the floorboards. He would have understood and almost welcomed a partner purging his contempt on his flesh, but…astonishingly enough, this incredibly judgmental man didn’t seem to hold those acts against him. 

MacLeod truly seemed to view those deeds as the acts of a completely different person, who just happened to have been inhabiting Methos’ body at the time. Though in his heart Methos knew that those types of crimes were forever beyond him, he’d never believed anyone else could be completely sure of him, never expected anyone who knew the whole truth to have such…trust in his integrity. Of course, Mac could just be visiting that same Egyptian river Pam Tillis had made popular a few years back. Denial was such a funny thing, but…Methos didn’t think so. The Highlander had been just as bothered by Methos’ recitation of his crimes against Longford as the other men at the table. It was only Mac’s love for him that allowed him to transcend the issue.

Methos could sense that love guiding every touch. He’d never felt anything like it. That tenderness was so far from what he felt he deserved tonight that it left his eyes stinging, swimming in burning salt water that he was too ashamed to let loose. He couldn’t stop the occasional droplet from seeping out of the corner of his eyes as Mac’s hands continued their loving exploration, but he was able to hold back the embarrassing display. It hurt to be so loved when punishment and abandonment were warranted.

Mac’s fingers gripped the bottom of Methos’ shirt. He lifted his arms as it was tugged upwards, turning and squirming so that MacLeod could pull his long johns, boxers and socks off immediately afterward. He ended up kneeling naked on the couch beside his lover, who was still wedged into the couch corner facing him. The cooler air pricked his flesh up in goose bumps or it might have been a reaction to what MacLeod’s gaze moving hungrily over his bared body was doing to him.

Bewilderment replaced the want on those perfect features as that roving gaze met his own. Methos tensed as Mac’s right index finger reached out to brush the wetness on his cheek. 

To his shock and utter confusion, MacLeod didn’t interrogate him, confining his questions to a simple, “You all right?”

Methos wanted to offer some glib reassurance to convince his friend, but all he could do was fall into those bottomless brown eyes and nod.

Needing to take the emphasis off his fragile emotional state, Methos reached for the belt of MacLeod’s terrycloth robe. It opened immediately. Methos slipped the garment from those broad shoulders, his eyes doing their own reconnaissance. He could almost feel the beloved dichotomy of the firm softness of his lover’s chest with his eyes. 

As ever, Mac gave into desire soonest, reaching out to grip Methos’ shoulders and tug him down into a kiss. That mouth was the most luscious treat Methos could recall, and for all his comparative youth, Mac knew how to use it. They sucked and kneaded at each other until a DNA test would have been unable to separate their saliva in any given sample. 

MacLeod’s right hand swept from Methos right shoulder, down his side, over his waist, then down and inwards, homing in on a certain organ that was biting at the bit for some attention, as it were. Quicksilver delight danced through him as Mac’s rough palm circled his cock, sliding his foreskin up and down as he began a familiar, but totally devastating pumping. 

MacLeod’s left hand settled between his shoulder blades and gave a gentle push. Never one to need a formal invitation, Methos leaned forward, ending up in a strange position. His upper left chest was pressed tight against the still sitting MacLeod’s right side, making their kiss that much more comfortable, but his lower body was still kneeling beside his friend.

They played tongue tag forever…until it penetrated Methos’ dazed mind that, although he was already well on the way to nirvana, he hadn’t touched Mac’s shaft at all yet. That being an unbearable lapse, Methos immediately ripped his mouth free.

MacLeod’s incoherent protest died as Methos’ teeth and tongue found that powerful neck. Mac was partial to playful nips there.

A man on a mission, Methos was glad of the time he’d spent in Tibet, for his current position rapidly turned into a yoga pose as he worked his way down Mac’s chest and abdomen. After three months of constant exposure, it should have been familiar, predictable territory, but Methos always felt almost awed as this invincible warrior arched under him, delivering himself up into Methos’ care.

Mac gave so much of himself, was so utterly there in the moment and open to the pleasure Methos gave that Methos was always sizzling at this point. And beyond that, every touch seemed to up the voltage of that weird energy web that always formed between them whenever they made love. 

He could already feel Mac’s lifeforce pulsing through his skin, like the lightning of a Quickening. However, there was no pain, only nerve-melting pleasure, a delight so raw that it made a five thousand year old, sexually active male quiver like a virgin every time it jolted through him. 

Methos’ tongue followed the intimate trail of dark body hair that arrowed down Mac’s flat stomach. Because MacLeod was sitting and not lying down, that erect cock nudged at his face before he’d even reached the pubic mound.

Dizzied by the heady blast of musk, Methos’ mouth started to water. He’d always had an oral fixation, but even if he hadn’t, the taste of that moisture-beaded flesh would have made an addict out of him. Crawling backwards on the couch, Methos gave himself some moving room. Once he had sufficient space to work in, he swooped down on that dewy, red prize like a descending eagle. 

Mac’s cry as he was absorbed into Methos’ mouth filled the firelit barge. Everything about Mac was so beautiful in this flickering, romantic light. MacLeod was a glossy gold everywhere, save where desire had tainted him blood red. 

Methos’ greedily sucked upon the ruddiest part, that salty, spicy, _male_ flavor flushing through him. Mac was so thick here that Methos’ jaw actually ached from the stretch, but it was the sweetest strain Methos knew. Employing tongue and suction, he brought his friend to whimpering fullness.

He loved the rush that came from hearing this mighty warrior cry out his name with such naked need. Methos might have gloried in that sensation longer, but Mac knew the great equalizer where Methos was concerned.

Methos was there bobbing away, fellating that perfect cock for all that he was worth, arrogantly relishing MacLeod’s helpless surrender to the pleasure he could give, when Mac evened the score. 

MacLeod was never a passive partner in passion. The Highlander’s hands were always moving over Methos when they did this, but Methos could pretty much ignore strokes to his neck, back, chest or flanks. Even when Mac took hold of his cock, Methos had a certain degree of control. But Duncan had learned his Achilles heel.

Just when Methos was feeling a bit too pleased with himself, Mac’s rough palmed, right hand brushed across his left buttock. Though he gasped a little around the seeping cock in his mouth, Methos was none-the-less still able to hold it together. That was, until Mac’s fingertips slid between the cheeks of his ass.

Methos’ entire neural system jerked with the pleasure of that touch. He released a muffled groan around the saliva slick shaft blocking his throat, wincing under the sweet agony as his nose pressed into Mac’s pubic hair.

Methos knelt frozen there in that awkward position, unable to move or breathe, every muscle taut with anticipation.

MacLeod didn’t disappoint him. The tip of Mac’s thick middle finger tentatively circled the tight, quivering entrance to his body that was hidden there. 

Methos had never understood his over-sensitivity there, but it really was as if his sphincter were hot-wired to his groin. The second Mac’s finger rimmed him, he was propelled to a new level of arousal. His entire body broke out in a sudden sweat, everything freezing as Methos concentrated his entire being on that tight little hole.

He heard Mac’s left hand fumbling beside him on the couch cushion, but was too lost in the feel of that blunt fingertip pressing steadily against his center to even open his eyes to see.

His eyelids snapping apart, Methos lifted his head from Mac’s cock and cried out “No!” as MacLeod’s hand left its snug sheath between his cheeks.

“Ssssh,” Mac soothed, bending sideways towards him.

Methos face was pressed against Mac’s flat, muscular stomach by the move. Both of MacLeod’s elbows settled upon Methos’ spine for a second or two, resting upon his bent back as though Methos were a table as the Highlander’s hands worked at some unseen task that had nothing to do with Methos’ body.

A moment or so later, Mac’s right hand slid back between his buttocks. The middle finger returned to its former position, only this time it was slathered with gooey lubricant.

Methos’ rudimentary intelligence, all that ever operated once he was aroused to this level, realized that Mac must have had the lube tube in the pocket of his robe. That was his MacLeod. Like any good little Boy Scout, his friend was always prepared.

Methos sighed as that long finger slowly sank into him, past the knuckle, penetrating as deep as it would go. It circled inside him, thoroughly loosening him up before the index finger joined it. 

MacLeod might have been a relative newcomer to sex between men three months ago, but his lover was a virtuoso at it these days. Mac made an art form out of such mundane tasks as lubricating. What the Highlander did when his cock came into play was transforming. 

Mac spent a long time working the flesh back there until he was ready, far longer than any lover Methos could remember. Two, then three fingers moved in and out of Methos’ body in unison, circling, scissoring, and stretching Methos until he was receptive enough to receive the thick shaft that was waiting.

Methos considered their positions. He still had his head in the sitting Highlander’s lap as he knelt beside Duncan on the couch. Mac’s arm was draped down his spine, his fingers penetrating Methos from above. Interesting from an aesthetic angle, but as far as satisfaction was concerned, Methos was facing the wrong way.

Tomorrow’s battle heavy on his heart, Methos was fully aware that this was the last night he might ever have. It pleased him that he was doing what he loved best, with the person he’d loved most in his extensive lifespan.

Lifting his head from the crotch he was still pleasuring, Methos stared up at his lover’s face. Mac was so gloriously intent on what his fingers were doing at Methos’ anus, his soft expression as close to worshipful as Methos had ever seen. When they were touching each other like this, it almost scared him, for it was too close to the ideal Methos had searched his entire life for, but never found. He shivered, feeling his death upon him as he rarely had in five thousand years. Poe was right. The angels envied love like this.

“You ready?” Mac questioned, his voice thick with need, beads of sweat running down his face, glinting in the firelight like liquid diamonds.

“Always,” Methos rasped back, way ahead of the Highlander in the need department.

Mac’s fingers carefully withdrew.

“What’re you doin’?” MacLeod rumbled as Methos changed position on the couch, shifting to lie on his back.

Methos meaningfully lifted an eyebrow, pulled his knees tight to his chest and let his ingenious partner come to the proper conclusion.

An expression of unspeakable tenderness crossed MacLeod’s handsome features as he hastily knelt on the couch cushion between Methos’ upraised legs. 

Methos watched the play of emotion across that beloved face as Mac positioned himself at the entrance to his body and began to sink in. Always so cautious, always so gentle, Mac never took Methos’ prior experience with men for granted as excuse to go for the gold without proper warm-up as so many other contenders in the past had done. Even with Byron, Methos was fortunate half the time if they used spit as a lubricant. 

Methos memorized every fleeting expression as Mac fully sheathed himself, wanting to keep this image close to his heart tomorrow at dawn on that ill-boding bridge.

Mac’s bulk was as impressive as ever, the stretch uncomfortable, despite all the foreplay. MacLeod was just so thick there. Not as long as some Methos had known, but by far the meatiest. Adjustment was as deliciously slow as the penetration.

Mac knew what he was doing now and changed his entry angle slightly, at just the right moment to result in the internal collision that never failed to jumpstart Methos’ entire reality. One second, Methos was gasping in breath, trying to force his body to accommodate a bulk that was just too big for comfort, the next that intrusive, organic telephone pole was rubbing up against that internal pleasure button, catapulting Methos to another dimension.

The pleasure crashed through him like thunder, shaking all Methos was and knew with its brilliance. Groaning under the barrage, Methos wrapped his legs around Mac’s slender hips, dug his heels into those well-padded buttocks and spurred the man forward as he’d once spurred his warhorse on. 

Mac grunted and fell towards him, plunging into him to the hilt.

Methos’ arms encircled those broad shoulders, holding Mac’s head to his shoulder as they both gasped for much needed breath. 

The power exchange alone was enough to undo Methos. He felt like he’d just stuck his tongue into a wall socket; there was so much energy sizzling between their neural networks. Made dizzy by the deluge, Methos hung on for dear life.

“You okay?” Mac growled into his ear, seeming barely able to hold it together under the power jolting him.

This was getting almost frightening. Methos could see it in his lover’s eyes how alien this entire energy conduit was to Mac. Every time they got together, it seemed to hit them stronger, as though it were slowly building to something unknown, perhaps something totally unique to their kind.

Methos nodded. Knowing what he wanted, he brushed the dangling hair clear of Mac’s face and softly asked, “How’s your back, Highlander?”

“My back?” MacLeod looked like he’d just addressed him in ancient Sumerian or some other equally incomprehensible language.

Clutching Mac tight with both his arms and legs, Methos hoarsely ordered, “Lift me.”

After a bit of maneuvering on Mac’s part, Methos felt himself being carefully eased off the couch cushion. That javelin stuck up Methos’ center pierced him even deeper as his support was removed and that internal spike became his sturdiest hold on MacLeod’s body.

He’d never heard Mac give the kind of shocked moan that came when Methos’ body settled so deeply around his cock. Methos knew that he was not a slight man. Though nowhere near as dense as MacLeod’s muscular form, he was long. What there was of him was all corded muscle. This position wasn’t easy on Mac. The strain on his lover’s back and legs was phenomenal, but Methos knew from personal experience that the heightened sensation of this unprecedented, deep penetration far outweighed the discomfort. 

It didn’t get deeper than this. For as long as MacLeod’s muscles could endure, this would be the ride of his life.

For Methos’ part, it was like being skewered on the end of a war pike. There was blessed little physical pleasure to be had from this end. Mac was too busy just trying to hold him up for there to be any friction against Methos’ prostate. Methos had endured tortures that hurt less than this, and yet…it was beautiful all the same. There was no more intimate gift he could give than this. This was as close as two males could get while maintaining separate bodies. Mac was owning him as only one other man had in history, and even there, that previous union paled by comparison.

A mortal would have crumpled after a minute or so; Mac held out for what felt like forever. Though his arms and legs were clutching MacLeod’s sturdy form with strangling tightness, Methos could feel his strained flesh starting to rip as his weight and gravity bore him inexorably down. 

Grimacing under the intense discomfort, Methos buried his face in the crook of Mac’s shoulder.

Astonished by his lover’s prowess, he felt Mac stagger away from the couch. They moved away from the living room area, away from the warmth of the hearth, in the opposite direction from the expected bedroom. 

Methos grunted as the support of Mac’s left hand on his back left him. He felt MacLeod’s arm sweep out in front of them. A couple of loud crashes followed. Methos opened his eyes as he was carefully lowered downwards. Shocked, Methos found himself deposited on the icy coldness of MacLeod’s now bare wooden desk. 

At first he was confused by their destination, then he realized that the desk was the only piece of flat furniture in the room that was groin level. If Mac had put him down anywhere else, they would have lost the depth of this agonizingly intense union. He’d always known Duncan was a bright boy.

Methos was barely flat when Mac began moving. 

Dazed, Methos realized that he’d finally found the ticket to circumventing his partner’s sometimes annoying protective streak. There was no restraint here. That sustained, almost Tantric pose had unleashed a part of Mac Methos had only seen rare glimpses of. The Highlander slammed into him full force, the way Kronos used to do when furious with him. Only…this wasn’t about anger. This was about need, and desperation, and a complex tangle of other emotions that even a five thousand year old man couldn’t define.

And it was about power: the simple dynamics that made every human relationship tick – the savage need to own, and the equally feral need to be owned. Methos wanted this man to mark him as his. He wanted MacLeod to brand his very soul, so that tomorrow when he faced that man he had wronged so terribly, there wouldn’t be even vestigial traces of the conqueror Methos had been all those countless centuries ago. There would only be this Methos, the one who was good enough for Duncan MacLeod to love.

For savage and wild as this was, it was still love. Methos felt as open emotionally as he was physically. Every time Mac slammed into him with all his weight behind him, their eyes would meet and a bridge would be formed between their very souls. Grunting and crying out at the force of the impact, Methos melted inside. Every thrust hit his prostate so hard on the way in that the agony transformed into equally piercing delight.

His eyes wide open, his face twisted with god knew what emotions, Methos saw himself in the tiny black mirrors that were Mac’s pupils, knew MacLeod was seeing himself mirrored in his own. At that moment, they were each other. There were no barriers, no yesterdays and no tomorrows, only the now and this intimate knowledge of death in life and pain in pleasure that would transform them the way childbirth did women.

And, then, there was the other kind of power to contend with, the kind that was sparking around them like a Quickening. This time, Methos knew it wasn’t just his imagination. Every time Mac rammed into him, blinding flashes of electricity bled out into the air around Mac like capillaries shooting out from a vein. Methos could almost smell the sulfur as the sparks faded.

Adrenaline, fear and desire combining, Methos squeezed his eyes closed to shut out the disturbing sight of those lightning bolts, concentrating on the equally devastating internal blasts.

Every time Mac pounded into him, he grunted as he slid up the desk. Mac’s hands on his hips would pull Methos back down as he withdrew from his body, then the process would be repeated with the next entry. 

He’d been raped countless times in his life, but even there, where there had been no regard for his well-being at all, the sex hadn’t been this primal, this unbound. And yet, for all its unbridled savagery, Methos did not feel ill-used. 

Methos sensed an almost imperceptible difference in the dynamics operating between them. Looking up at the sweating, grunting man owning him, Methos at last realized what was happening here. The final barrier, that of civility, had dropped away. Tonight they were showing each other a part of themselves that they had bared to no other lover. Methos knew that the ever-honorable Duncan MacLeod had never let himself go like this with a woman in his life. And, Methos himself…for all his savagery as Death, he had never allowed himself to be willingly taken like this. Kronos might have raped him this hard, but it had never been consensual. He _wanted_ Mac to let loose on him like this. They might never have another night this rough and wild in their lives, might never need another night like this, but tonight there was something totally purifying about it. Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, what was left of them after this incendiary union would be something totally new…a love with no barriers.

Eventually, they reached critical mass. MacLeod plunged into him so deep Methos thought his lover’s cock would surface up his throat. With an almost audible, internal whoosh, Methos entire neural network melted, his cock spurting his liquefied self up at MacLeod.

It sounded like his coming scalded Mac, so nerve rending was the scream his lover released.

MacLeod stilled within him. Methos sensed, rather than felt the powerful spurts that bathed him internally. Mac’s back arched as the pleasure was ripped from him, his face a raptured rictus of its usual self.

Then orgasm passed and the Highlander slumped forward, burying his face in the hollow of Methos’ shoulder as the not inconsiderable impact of his weight knocked the breath from Methos. 

For his own part, Methos wrapped his legs and arms around his collapsed lover, closed his eyes, and held on with desperate tenderness as he waited for his world to stop spinning.

They both groaned as Mac slipped his cock out a few minutes later, but neither of them moved yet.

Methos could feel both their hearts pounding like the thundering hoofs of an approaching cavalry. 

Finally, Mac pressed a wet kiss against Methos’ neck and rose with a groan.

“Thank God,” Methos heard Mac whisper.

Forcing his eyes apart, the best Methos could offer was a semi-coherent, “Hmmm?”

“I was sure I’d ripped you to pieces,” MacLeod confessed.

Methos looked up in time to catch the blush. He lowered his gaze to the organic skewer that had given him such transcendental pleasure. Sure enough, it was just a normal, deflated penis now…a penis that, though smeared with the unavoidable, less than appealing mementos of where it had been, was remarkably free of blood.

“I’d’ve died happy,” Methos quipped, feeling strangely light hearted.

“Methos…”

He could see Mac was having some trouble handling what they’d just unloosed on each other. 

“Let it be, Mac,” Methos said, stroking the last of the perspiration from his lover’s brow and pushing the damp hair back.

“I…I never…” Mac tried to explain.

“Me, neither. I wanted it, though,” Methos admitted. If he didn’t return tomorrow, he didn’t want Mac off on a guilt trip over the most satisfying, if frightening sex of his life. 

Methos sat up on the desk, doing his best to hold in the resultant moan. He could feel a dozen strains healing as he moved.

“Are you…I mean…” 

Methos looked up at the incoherent, self-conscious half-question. “What is it, Duncan?”

Using Mac’s first name acted like a charm. It seemed to cut through his companion’s fretting like a katana through silk. 

“I meant to comfort you,” Mac quietly offered.

“And so you did. Help me down?” Methos asked, even though he was fully capable of sliding from the desktop unassisted.

He hugged the Highlander as he was guided onto the deck. The pressure of those arms that immediately surrounded him was immensely reassuring. As recently as last week, Methos would have worried that he’d taken Mac too far, too fast, but he was as blown away by what they’d done as his less experienced companion.

Neither of them seemed to know what to say, so they just held onto each other until Methos’ shivering became too obvious.

“You’re freezing,” Mac whispered, his voice fond and loving as he pulled back. Mac’s gaze looked as sleepy as overwhelmed. “Let’s go to bed.”

A moment later, Methos was under the heavy duvet, with the living furnace of Duncan MacLeod pressed tight against his back and Mac’s right arm banding him, holding him tight against the Highlander’s chest.

Methos could feel the sleep stealing through his lover as he relaxed against the mattress. With a battle to be fought in a few, brief hours, Methos would find no rest himself, but it was calming to be held so close to MacLeod as the night ticked away.

For better or worse, for the sake of the man softly snoring behind him, he was committed to this fight tomorrow. Trying to still his mind, Methos lay there, attempting to synchronize his breathing to MacLeod’s. He wished the night would never end, that he could spend eternity under the loving weight of that warm body lying half on top of him, breathing in the lingering, gamy scent of their love making.

But all nights had to end, the best as well as the worst. Methos felt as though he had barely gotten comfortable when MacLeod was stirring behind him.

“Mmmm…” Mac mumbled, pressing his groin against Methos’ ass before he was fully awake.

Methos smiled into his pillow and arched backwards. They were angled right for once. Mac slid home on their first try. Knowing that his lover was still more asleep than awake, Methos rocked his hips back and forth, creating the friction needed to bring his sleepy friend up. All his night specters of death and mortality disappeared from Methos’ mind as that shaft pulsed to fullness within him. Once again, all there was in his world was this man loving him.

MacLeod’s sleepy morning erection turned to active interest. Methos knew the exact moment that Duncan woke up. Mac’s cock throbbed to living steel and the Highlander’s hips did their own pumping as Mac’s hand fumbled around in front of Methos for his cock. Two, three, six thrusts, some frantic pumping of Mac’s hand, and they were both tumbling over the edge into sweet oblivion.

“Good morning,” Methos greeted once he was able to think again.

“’morning,” Mac sighed, kissing the back of his neck as he slipped out of him. “You’ve been awake all night; haven’t you?”

Methos yawned and flexed under his lover. “Yes.”

Now that morning was here, all he really wanted to do was sleep. That was always the way with him – too nervy to sleep beforehand, then too strung out to perform at peak.

He shivered as Mac kissed the spot where spine and neck met. Methos thought he’d get a lecture, but Mac just squeezed him tighter.

“You up to breakfast?” MacLeod questioned.

“No.”

“I’m coming with you as your second,” Mac announced. He felt MacLeod’s body tense, as if braced for an objection.

Methos, who’d expected nothing else, merely nodded. “I’d best go shower.”

He rolled over and made the mistake of looking into those impossibly expressive eyes. Guilt, worry, fear…it was all there, but mostly, it was love Methos saw there.

He gulped, found his voice and promised, “I’ll do what I have to this morning. I…want to live.”

Mac’s mouth opened as if to answer and then closed without saying a word. The Highlander nodded his understanding and together they left the bed.

Methos forced a smile as his be-robed lover’s eyes widened when he came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later. He’d known his choice of clothing would get a reaction. The jeans were his own, of course, but the gray sweater and black tee shirt he had on top of them were those that Duncan had worn to the club last night.

“I’ve got clean ones in the dresser,” Mac offered. “I sweated like a pig in those last night. They must reek to high heaven.”

His smile was legit as Methos replied, “I know. They do. That’s why I’m wearing them. You mind?”

He loved that bashful look Mac got when taken completely by surprise and the blush that followed it. With an audible swallow, MacLeod shook his head.

Appearing even more uncertain, Mac reached into his white bathrobe’s pocket as Methos neared the dining area table where MacLeod was sitting. “I wanted you to carry this with you.”

Methos stared in confusion at the object in Mac’s hand. The black rosary beads were wooden, ugly and probably at least four centuries old.

“You want me to carry your favor into battle?” Methos tried for his usual urbanity, but even he could hear the shock in his own voice. Of all things he could ever imagine Duncan MacLeod giving him, a set of Catholic rosary beads was probably the last thing on the list.

“These belonged to Darius. I think he’d want you to have them…for luck.”

Darius again. Sometimes Methos was almost jealous of the influence that monk had had over MacLeod. But not this morning. He’d take any help he could get with this upcoming confrontation.

Methos gulped and opened his palm to receive the gift. He wasn’t surprised by the buzz that hit him when the warm beads, smoothed by centuries of constant use, settled into his hand. Myrddid’s most intimate possessions had that same type of resonance to them, as though the power of the man who’d carried them were ingrained in the molecular structure of the mundane objects.

“Thank you,” Methos acknowledged, a little tight-throated already. There were so many things he still had to say to this man, the same impossible truths he’d never be able to voice, even if they had a million years together. 

“Put them in your pocket,” Mac suggested.

“I don’t think so,” Methos said, then before Mac had a chance to react, he slipped the beads over his head and stuck them under his borrowed sweater. “It may be sacrilegious, but that’s the part of me I want protected most.”

Mac managed a small smile.

“I think we’ll have at least one angel on our side this morning,” Mac said. “Darius was a strong believer in redemption.”

Methos nodded. Wishing he could say more, all he could find was, “You’d better get dressed.”

Ten minutes later, they were leaving the barge. Methos paused in the doorway to take a long look at the familiar airy space.

“You’re coming back,” MacLeod firmly stated.

“Of course I am,” Methos replied, neither of them quite ready to deal with the reality upon them.

MacLeod knew as well as he did that Longford shouldn’t have lasted a year after his first death, let alone nearly four millennia. Immature Immortals were nothing but fodder. Methos had rarely met an eighteen-year-old that lasted longer than a decade. For this man child to have survived this long in active challenges, his talents with a sword must have been as developed as his battle tactics.

It had stopped snowing some time in the early pre-dawn hours and the wind had blown the clouds out. About an inch of pristine snow covered the dock. It shone unnaturally white on the ground under the starlight.

Methos drew in a breath of the cold, sharp air.

“ _Yut a hey_ ,” he muttered with a shrug.

“No,” Mac said, stopping him at the top of the gangplank. “This is not a good day to die.”

Methos gasped as his mouth was taken in a kiss that was fully as possessive as the sex they’d shared last night. 

When they parted, Mac said, “That is not an option here, so don’t even go there. You are coming home this morning.”

Methos nodded and gave his friend’s shoulder a squeeze, then started down the slippery gangplank.

Side by side, they walked the mile or so to the footbridge. The snow underfoot was just deep enough to be treacherous. With every step he took, Methos could feel the sword beneath his coat banging against his outer thigh and knee like a three-foot icicle. 

It was so bloody cold. It hurt to breathe. Methos hated fighting in weather like this. A man made stupid mistakes on a morning this unfriendly.

All the way there, Methos harbored the absurd hope that his opponent wouldn’t show, but even in the dark, from nearly a quarter mile away, he could see Longford’s compact frame silhouetted at the foot of the dark bridge. The curls on his adversary’s bare head caught the starlight in a silvery halo. Longford looked like an avenging angel waiting there for him…and that was definitely not an image his nerves needed.

Immortals were a superstitious lot. Even the most rational of them had their quirks. Methos, who had prided himself on nearly a thousand years of cold reason, wished with all his heart that this challenge was being fought any place but here. He could still feel Kalas’ unstoppable weight bearing him backwards over that guard rail as he’d fought in defeat to keep his hand between Kalas’ sword and its intended target. He did not want to face Longford here, not with that kind of history playing through the mental flashbacks that none of them ever seemed to be able to turn off. 

The bridge itself seemed evil, rising like an ominous, metallic spider web across the Seine.

The darkness seemed to close in around him, whispering of endings in the predawn chill. The sun wasn’t even near coming up. The only hint of it was a faint graying on the eastern horizon.

“So, you made it,” Longford commented in a puff of steaming breath once they came within hearing distance. His strong featured face was so hard and cold that it looked like one of the golden coins that had borne his image in ancient Hellas.

“I’m here,” Methos replied. “We can still walk away from this. We don’t have to fight.”

“You’d like that; wouldn’t you?” Longford sneered.

“Yes,” Methos answered simply and honestly.

“Our acquaintance was right. You are a coward these days,” Longford’s contempt was palpable.

It wasn’t good. Methos could feel his nerves cracking, his sleepless night catching up with him as he tried to reason one last time, “She does not know me! You do not know me! This will prove nothing!”

His outburst didn’t even ruffle the other ancient Immortal. Sounding almost bored, Longford shrugged and said, “Perhaps, but if nothing else, it will be over.” Those chilling blue eyes slipped past Methos. Longford’s chin gestured towards MacLeod. “He’s here to…?”

“Help bury you,” Mac said, nothing warm in his tone or features. His attitude seeming to change as he took in the comparative youth of Methos’ opponent, MacLeod made a final try for sanity with, “Methos is right. You prove nothing by this challenge, Alexander of Macedon. The past is long gone. Let it go. Let there be peace between you and my friend.”

Methos thought he could almost hear the voice of the man whose rosary beads he wore around his neck echoed in Duncan’s earnest tone.

Longford’s reaction was hardly surprising – to Methos. MacLeod still was delusional enough to appear startled by the degree of contempt his plea for peace garnered.

“One cannot make peace with monsters,” Longford spat.

A thoughtful, regretful air settled over MacLeod as his lover answered, “No, I don’t suppose one can.” Mac turned to Methos. The Highlander’s blunt, squarish hands rested on Methos’ shoulders as he looked deep into his eyes. “Come back to me, my friend.”

Then MacLeod totally shocked him by leaning in to give him a brief, but intimate kiss on the mouth, right in front of Longford.

His chilled lips warmed by the unexpected contact, Methos gasped as they parted.

MacLeod turned back to the third party present. 

Longford was observing them with the kind of mild interest that only a pre-Christian could have. Strangely enough, the expression in that classical face seemed almost melancholic. “It’s like that between you; is it? He’s not worthy of you, Highlander. He’s no Hepheastian.”

Even though he knew it was foolish, Methos couldn’t help but tense at hearing his own feelings voiced by an enemy. He knew he wasn’t worthy of MacLeod, but for a stranger to be able to see that so clearly…

It was almost like MacLeod were reading his every thought. No sooner had Methos reacted to Longford’s words than Mac’s hand settled on the center of his back, offering his solid support.

“You don’t know my friend at all if you think that,” Mac answered, unruffled. “He’s a scholar and a healer-”

“And a child murderer,” Longford cut in. 

“Not anymore. If you got to know him...” Mac protested.

“I’d love him, no doubt,” Longford snorted. “I don’t want to know him. I don’t care what piddling acts of kindness he’s done to dazzle your eyes and steal your honor. What he’s done can’t – and _shouldn’t_ – be forgiven. I’m here to speak for the thousands of innocents who died on his sword. This is their day and they shall have their vengeance.”

“The dead don’t care about vengeance! The man you hate doesn’t exist anymore,” Mac insisted.

“Then he shall die in the monster’s place,” Longford shrugged.

“It could be you who dies here,” MacLeod reminded.

“So be it,” Longford answered.

“It’s useless, Mac,” Methos said, giving his lover’s arm a grateful squeeze. Turning to Longford, he said, “Let’s get this over with.”

Mac moved between them and offered up a version of the benediction that preceded most trials by combat. “Our claimants take the field today seeking justice in the sight of Man and God. Fight true and honorably. May the right prevail.”

Longford was apparently another enthusiast of this barbaric, absurd ritual, for he repeated Mac’s words in the same devout tone. “May the right prevail.”

Methos, who had no reason to believe that right prevailing would do him any good, remained silent.

“Your coats?” MacLeod offered, holding out his right arm.

Though he would have liked to keep its warmth a little longer, his long coat would only be an impediment in battle. Methos shrugged out of it and gave it over to Mac’s safekeeping.

“Mine too?” Longford questioned when MacLeod turned to him, seeming surprised by the courtesy.

Mac nodded, accepting the leather coat when Longford removed it.

It was almost like a challenge of old where the only thing that differentiated the combatants were the colors of the house they wore, Methos realized as he took in how similarly Longford and he were dressed. They were both wearing black jeans and heavy wool sweaters. Longford’s sweater was bone white, while the one Methos had borrowed from Mac was ash gray.

With a nod towards MacLeod, the Macedonian drew his sword.

Methos followed suite. His entire being was focused on staying alive as Alexander circled him, looking for an opening.

Methos saw one of his own immediately. He had a foot in height and a good eight inches in reach on his opponent. Either Longford was an over-confident fool, which Methos doubted, or this was a trap. Alex Longford was facing him as though they were equally apportioned. It looked like Methos could go right over the younger man’s guard before Longford would even know what hit him. Normally, he would have waded in, made his move and pierced the heart at that kind of advantage, but…

A man did not survive for forty centuries by making such mistakes, so he held back.

Besides, as he looked at that young, tense face, too much history was moving through Methos. As if it were just yesterday, Methos could see that same face grimacing, the slender form taut with agony as Kaspian cut into him again and again…

Methos knew himself a sentimental idiot, but the memory of the hours his brothers and he had delighted in torturing this youth were too heavy on his mind at the moment. Normally, Methos preferred to live free of the strictures of conscience, but when you were carrying something like that around with you, it was hard to move beyond it. Even now, in a life and death situation, Methos was loath to make the first move.

Alexander took the decision from his hands. Moving in, the Macedonian began a very frontal, open attack, thrust, parry, thrust…designed to take his opponent’s measure, Methos knew.

The former Horseman deflected every blow, but he held back, not following the leads Death would have taken and, incidentally, masking his true abilities as the shorter man exhausted himself with his volleys.

Longford was good; Methos had to give him that. Not as good as MacLeod, of course, but possibly as skilled as Methos himself. Within three minutes of joining the fight, Methos understood fully well how this boy had survived as long as he had. His swordsmanship was near faultless, his cunning and courage astounding. Time and time again, Longford waded in and took risks that a taller man would never have made, and survived them by benefit of his quick wits and breathtaking agility. 

At one point, Longford got so close that Methos had to pull out his stiletto to deflect a killing thrust to the lung. 

Longford gave a contemptuous snort, a stiletto instantly appearing in his hand as well. And then they were fighting two handed in the Florentine style, which had been called dimachaerus when Methos had fought that way in Rome. So many names, so many styles, but it all came down to the same thing – killing to stay alive.

Clash, clang, clatter…the rhythm of sword fighting was as familiar a backdrop to Methos’ life as the beat of his own heart. Like a dance, once learned and never forgotten, he fell into its seductive steps. His arms and feet moved independent of his mind, prisoner of this deadly waltz which only one of the dancers would survive.

Seeing an advantage, Methos advanced on his smaller opponent, driving him backwards.

To his surprise, Longford ceded the ground, backing up one, two steps, then quick as an arrow’s flight, the Macedonian was arching over backwards and Methos received a jarring kick to the chin as his opponent performed a back flip that Nero’s best tumblers would have admired – landing upright and agilely in an inch of slippery snow.

His senses reeling at the shock of the blow, Methos was barely able to pull himself out of the way of the sword lunge that followed inhumanly fast on the back flip’s proverbial heels. As it was, the thrust caught his left shoulder, digging in deep.

It was the shock of it more than the pain that stunned him. Longford moved so fast, in such unexpected manners that it was hard to anticipate where to defend.

As his blood seeped through Mac’s borrowed tee shirt and sweater, Death howled in fury inside him. And still, Methos held him back.

“Damn it, Methos! Fight him!” MacLeod ordered from the sidelines.

If he’d had the breath to spare, Methos would have laughed. He was fighting Longford. The only problem was, he was outclassed here. Though shorter and less dense, his opponent was the better fighter, just as Methos had attempted to warn his lover. Fire and hate were everything in a battle. While Methos had spent the last twenty centuries learning to heal, Longford had obviously spent them perfecting his killing techniques.

To his horror, as the sun began to rise behind the footbridge they were fighting on, Methos found himself seriously losing ground, being driven further towards the middle of the narrow bridge where his reach and the breadth of his swing became impediments at such close quarters.

So much for the mercy of angels, Methos thought as he took another blow. This one was to his brow, a nasty horizontal slice that bathed his face in a warm gush of blood and temporarily blinded both his eyes.

Methos didn’t need his eyes to know what would happen next. He’d danced this waltz far too many times in his past to be in any doubt.

For one unbelieving heartbeat, he stood there knowing his death was upon him, and then…

Death wasn’t upon him…it was within him. With a terrible, wrenching roar the conscienceless warrior Methos had chained to the wall of his soul two and a half millennia ago broke free of his bonds. 

Death knew all the steps of the dance he’d just played with Longford, and then some. Primal instincts taking him fully over, Methos found himself dropping to his butt in the slushy snow and rolling over backwards. The whoosh of Longford’s sword passed so close to his face and neck that he could smell his own blood on the blade as it went by.

It had been three thousand years since he’d made that kind of move with weapons in both hands, but somehow Methos’ body remembered the doing of it. With just the slightest of slips on the soggy slush, Methos regained his feet without losing either blade or limb. 

And Death still had him moving, spinning in a blind kick that somehow made contact with Longford’s sword arm. Death grinned at the satisfying crunch of bone, Methos wincing at the same sound. Both Methos and his evil twin breathed a sigh of relief as they heard a slushy swump, then Longford’s sword clanged to the concrete through the snow.

A few precious seconds bought, Methos’ hand fumbled to his face, clearing the blood out of his eyes with his sleeve.

Death instantly appraised the situation. Longford was scrabbling through the slush for his fallen weapon, his right arm hanging uselessly beside him. Death took in his opponent’s broken arm, and more importantly, Longford’s open guard and lunged as Longford regained his feet with his sword in hand.

Methos’ blade went deep into the young man’s side. The wound would have killed a mortal in moments, but Longford simply staggered and backed up some.

As if someone else were truly guiding this fight, Methos watched his sword thrust for the injured man’s side again. 

Longford parried it away, just barely, but he didn’t move fast enough to prevent Methos’ stiletto from opening a six-inch gash in Longford’s left arm, which was now holding the sword.

Longford had just enough time to adjust his stance to deflect the next volley for his wounded side. This time, the Macedonian pulled back with a bleeding shoulder.

Horrified, Methos realized that Death was playing with Longford. 

Hating the cruelty, Methos tried time and again to regain control, but Death was having none of it. The gentle scholar Methos had fostered these last thirty centuries had brought them to this strait. Methos could feel Death’s resolve to override him so that they would both survive. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do about it. Distracting Death at a moment like this was tantamount to suicide and, disturbing as his alter ego’s savagery was, Methos still wanted to live.

Vaguely, he wondered if Mac had felt like this during the Dark Quickening, as though there were truly two distinct versions of himself fighting for dominion of his soul. Methos had no doubts as to who was winning at this instant. Methos/Adam Pierson had no chance of standing up to this killer. What man or Immortal had ever stood against Death? With the way he was wielding his blades right now, even Duncan MacLeod might have fallen before him.

The artistry Death was displaying was astonishing. It was like the old days. Every time he pulled his blade back, there was fresh blood on it. Though every single gambit hit its target, none were clean, killing blows. He was cutting his opponent to pieces by slow degrees. And there was a part of him that delighted in that fact, a part of him that enjoyed the pain he was delivering as much as the challenge of battle…the same part of him that Methos had chained behind the heavy walls of his conscience three millennia ago. The beast was free and Methos had no idea if he had the strength – or the desire – to imprison him again.

He hadn’t lied to MacLeod when he’d said he enjoyed the killing. There was an exhilaration that came from stepping beyond the boundaries of decency and humanity that couldn’t be expressed. Until a person experienced the high that came from the total freedom of the kill, it could not be comprehended or related.

Methos could feel that bloodlust seeping through his veins like a fever. Death gloried in it, like an addict craving the needle’s sweet release, but the man that Methos had become recoiled from it. The beast was loose and Methos the healer was no match for him.

The bridge looked like a slaughterhouse at the moment. The sun had peeked over the buildings on the eastern horizon as they fought. Its golden rays highlighted the battle scene in sharp relief – seeming to spotlight the scarlet gore splattering pristine white snow in a ten-foot radius. There was enough blood soaking the surrounding slush for a bull to have been sacrificed here. 

And still Longford fought on, with Death toying with him all the while.

The fight continued that way for too long a time. Longford was riddled with slashes from head to thigh. At first, Methos was relieved for the reprieve, more than willing to let Death defend them, but now…he could not do this, not anymore. He could not take pleasure in hacking off pieces of his opponent until the poor sod finally lost a supporting limb. That had not been his style for over three thousand years, and there was no way he was going to adopt it again now, certainly not with Duncan MacLeod, the most honorable fighter their kind had seen, standing by.

Longford was a mess. His left cheek had been cut open to the bone, his neck, shoulders, chest, hips and thigh were all sporting multiple, deep wounds. The younger Immortal’s sweater and jeans were in tatters, no part of his clothes unsmeared by blood. Though maddened with hatred, Longford was no fool. The Macedonian had recognized his peril and was fighting for his life now.

Realizing that he was pretty much in the same boat as Longford on a psychological-schizophrenic level, Methos did the same. Death could not hold dominion over his soul, not anymore. So, while that primitive holdover from Methos’ violent adolescence fought to keep them alive, Methos struggled to subdue the feeding frenzy.

No part of him unbloodied, Longford made a play for Methos, thrusting straight for the taller man’s heart.

Death responded instinctively, turning sideways so fast that Methos reeled dizzily inside. 

Even with the fast move, Longford’s blade still caught in the heavy fisherman’s sweater Methos was wearing. The blow came so close to hitting its intended target that it sliced through the borrowed sweater and tee shirt from Methos’ throat to sternum. The icy morning air might have been responsible for the goose pimples that pricked up Methos’ skin, but Methos thought that it was probably the close call.

Death’s response to the near miss was instantaneous, however. Methos sword was moving almost as soon as Longford’s whizzed past. Only, this time Methos exerted his own will on the delivery. Death fought him, but Methos knew how to seduce that kind of animal. He allowed the image of a pulsing fountain of arterial blood to seep through his mind to his primitive side, presenting a picture of himself bathing in that gruesome shower. In the end, Death found the prospect of fresh blood more appealing than a battle royale for a scholar’s soul. Feeling his other half’s interest, Methos made his move.

Temporarily in control, Methos acted fast. Instead of going for another mangling wound that would prolong the fight, Methos turned the blade inward at the last instant and buried his sword deep in Longford’s chest. 

Longford’s shocked outcry was music to Death’s ears. As the blood-drenched Macedonian sank to his knees, Methos kicked his adversary’s blade out of his hand. 

Both combatants watched the sword clatter through the rungs of the bridge’s vertical guardrail and drop to the darkness below.

Their eyes met over Methos’ silvery blade as the older Immortal pressed his sword to his opponent’s bare throat.

Longford’s utter astonishment was clear. It was obvious that the Macedonian had never thought he could lose this particular battle.

For his own part, Methos crouched over the kneeling man, panting for breath. 

Both of their exhalations were emerging as bullet like puffs of steam into the freezing morning air.

Like a batter at home plate, Methos lifted his blade for the swing that would give him the necessary momentum to act out the final scene in this four thousand year old revenge tragedy.

Death was eager for this one’s Quickening. What Immortal wouldn’t be? Longford was nearly as old as Methos himself. 

Wondering if the power of it would melt the metal of the bridge they were standing on, Methos began the follow through.

The movement caused a shivery reaction at Methos’ bared throat. The rosary beads that the collars of Mac’s sweater and tee shirt had held firmly in place for their entire fight shifted, falling free through the jagged rent there. As Methos spun in for the killing blow, Darius’ rosary beads swung out in front of him. For less than a heartbeat, the ancient wooden cross at the bead’s end glinted in the rising sun.

A chill passed through Methos’ soul as his gaze fixed on that glowing symbol of faith. This was the wrong time for it - not that there ever was a _right_ time for the freakish flashbacks that made up so much of an Immortal’s waking day – but a montage of images of those who had given him a taste of faith passed through Methos’ mind: Silla holding him as he sobbed with a scraped knee; Makur naming him heir to the throne of that Sumerian city state he’d ruled; the slave Cassandra showing him that the greatest conquests were not made with a bloodied sword, but with an open heart and gentle touch; the white bearded Socrates teaching him the meaning of truth; the balding Aristotle honing his mental skills; Morana offering the half-tamed barbarian her virginity; that crazed, gentle desert healer insisting that nothing broken couldn’t be fixed; the gold bearded Artos beaming as he called him brother and named him Champion; all the light dying in Artos’ blue eyes as the king stood over his wife’s bed, betrayed by both spouse and brother; Myrddid laughing as their naked limbs lay tangled in love; Myrddid again, dying as he tried to save Paris from the ravaging horde; Darius the conqueror taking Myrddid’s Quickening; then Darius the priest kneeling in the mire with Methos’ blade at his throat; His beloved Michel taking that spear to save his life. Brother Aiden refusing to release Methos’ hand as they both dangled over the prow of that stinking corrick as the sea raged beneath them on that ill-fated, tans-Atlantic crossing; Alexa Bond reaching for him as the life left her eyes; Duncan MacLeod on that snowy dock last night swearing to stand by him…

So much faith placed in him…so much faith broken…

The cross moved towards Longford, Methos’ blade following fast behind it…

Two thousand years of changing…all about to be blown so that the killer inside him could drink of his victim’s tempting Quickening…his two thousand year old oath about to be irreparably shattered, and with it, perhaps any hope he might have ever had of redemption. For Methos knew the beast within him. Once it tasted innocent blood, it would be a long, savage fight before it was subdued again.

The momentum of his swing was building, the deathblow descending…

Methos and Death screamed, “No!” at the same instant.

The internal battle was swift, furious and ruthless. Before the beast could strike, Methos brought those walls crashing down around it again, chaining Death back in the cage of conscience.

Stopping a swing like that mid-move was nearly as hard as conquering Death. Methos jerked his arms back, but it wasn’t humanly possible to halt the sword’s quick descent, so instead of stopping it mid-flow, Methos diverted it. Falling to his knees, he allowed the blade to crash through the pinkish snow at Longford’s side. It clattered against the ungiving cement with an impact so fierce that it nearly pulled the ball of Methos’ shoulder from its socket.

Gasping for breath in the icy air, unable to believe what he’d just done, Methos knelt there with his eyes closed for a long minute. He’d never felt anything with such intense clarity as he did Darius’ wooden rosary beads coming to rest against his throat a second later, their chill brush almost a ghostly benediction. For the life of him, Methos couldn’t believe what he’d just done.

Nor could his opponent. Methos could feel those disbelieving blue eyes digging into his face, could hear the other man’s ragged, liquid breathing. It would take a couple of minutes before that last blow to Longford’s left lung healed.

Knowing that his calm would shatter if he knelt here in the freezing snow for another second, Methos dragged himself up to his feet, his sword hanging heavy in his hand.

Still kneeling, obviously unable to move from his wounds yet, Longford stared up at him in visible shock.

“Finish it, Methullius!” Longford hissed.

Methos shook his head. “It’s done. Forty centuries ago the blood drunk beast that inhabited my body stole your life from you. I give your life back to you now. Go in peace, Alexander of Macedon. Live and grow stronger.”

“And that’s supposed to make up for it? The lives you snuffed cannot be replaced! The manhood you stole from me cannot be restored! Finish it, you simpering coward!” Longford yelled, fury, pain and madness all one in his tortured gaze.

Even when he tried to do the right thing, it never seemed to work out for him, Methos thought, staring shell shocked into Longford’s hate filled, blood-smeared features. When Duncan MacLeod had made this choice, the man he’d fought had walked honorably away, grateful for his head. This was…not what he’d anticipated.

Though, why he would expect things to work out right for him, Methos didn’t know.

He was totally hollow inside at the moment. Not knowing how to respond, he stood there quaking with the cold as the blood and sweat dried on his skin. His sword was still a leaden weight in his frozen hand. He could feel how strongly Death wanted to employ that blade right now, but…that wasn’t an option.

“It’s over,” Duncan MacLeod said from behind Methos. 

He could hear the Highlander’s footsteps as Mac slushed through the snow on the blood soaked footbridge.

MacLeod laid Longford’s coat over the nearest railing, then came over to where Methos was standing.

For some inexplicable reason, Methos couldn’t bring himself to meet his lover’s eyes. He stood staring down at the gruesome pink snow at his feet as his friend came close enough for Methos to feel the lure of MacLeod’s body heat. It didn’t make sense, but he felt like he’d failed. He couldn’t make this right with Longford. No matter what he did, he was never going to make any of it right.

Methos didn’t protest as Mac removed the sword from his gore-smeared fingers. He stood still as a statue as MacLeod worked his coat over first his right arm, then the left.

Mac’s hands moved directly into his field of vision then as the Highlander attempted to bring the sliced ends of the gray sweater Methos was wearing back together. As Mac worked to make him warmer, Methos couldn’t help but notice that there was blood on MacLeod’s fingers…as if Methos had tainted his friend by association.

Methos gulped. Horrified, he felt his stomach roil. The bitter, salty sting of bile bit at the back of his throat. He tried to force it down, but he gagged before he could help it…then he sank to his knees in the bloodied slush and spewed.

Remarkably enough, Mac crouched there right beside him, holding onto him, holding him up until the dry heaves stopped.

“It’s okay,” Mac soothed, staying there in the freezing, soaking slush with him until the tremors passed.

Methos couldn’t even begin to imagine what his lover was thinking at this moment. He’d never felt so humiliated and battered in his life, not even as a child when he’d been passed around his master’s camp like a hookah pipe.

There was a moment when Methos stopped heaving, when he just knelt there, staring down at the yellow bile that was steaming its way through the blood-pinked snow, wanting nothing more than to fall flat onto his face into the disgusting mess he’d made.

But a square-fingered hand came into view. With the skin browned from drying blood, the white handkerchief it held was a sharp contrast. 

Methos stayed completely still as his mouth was matter-of-factly mopped clean. The next thing he knew, he was being held tight to MacLeod’s formidable chest and Mac was pressing a kiss onto the crown of his head.

It was too much. If he’d had any defenses left, that gentle brush of lips would have destroyed them. As it was, all the old guilt, the relentless remorse, and the horror of how close Death had come to winning sovereignty over him again peaked to an unbearable whirlwind of emotion. 

He’d almost lost himself to that devil again. After three thousand years of growing and learning, he’d come a heartbeat away from reverting to that murdering beast. Even now, he could feel that side of himself restlessly stirring, craving the blood and Quickening of the crumpled man on the opposite side of the bridge – the man who would kill Methos without hesitation. 

Methos tried to hold onto his control, but…subduing Death had taken the last of his strength. Before Methos even knew what was happening, the tears were streaming down his face and he was sobbing into Mac’s coat.

The warrior he’d been was appalled by the disgraceful display. All he could think was that Longford was seeing all this…and even knowing that he was embarrassing both MacLeod and himself before his enemy, Methos still couldn’t stop. 

But Mac didn’t abandon him. MacLeod held onto him and stroked his back and hair as the cathartic storm worked its way through him. Methos had never known anything like the harbor of those loving arms.

Finally, the outburst ran its course. When the pain had stilled to hiccupy sobs, Methos at last lifted his face from MacLeod’s chest and dared his lover’s gaze. Feeling as though he’d failed on all fronts, Methos didn’t know what to expect.

“You okay now?” Mac asked, only concern in his face and eyes. Methos searched, but he couldn’t find a trace of condemnation.

“I…I don’t know why…” he tried to explain his unforgivable breakdown. It seemed every time he turned around, he was sobbing in front of MacLeod and that just wasn’t his usual style.

“Don’t you?” Mac questioned.

Somewhat chilled by MacLeod’s serious visage, Methos mutely shook his head.

“You’re not the man you were four thousand years ago and you can’t be that man again,” Mac explained, his voice soft and patient.

Wondering if Mac realized how close a showdown he’d faced with Death, Methos swallowed hard and quietly admitted, “I could be. It would be so easy to…”

“But you choose not to,” MacLeod said, sounding like that one fact was the only thing that mattered in the end.

And perhaps he was right. Choice was all that had ever stood between Methos and Death.

“Mac…”

“Yes?”

Too aware of their disapproving audience of one, Methos tried to find a way to say what he needed to express at this moment in a manner that wouldn’t further embarrass them both. Finally, the words of the tongue he’d used the longest, the lingua that was closest to his soul came out. Longford’s chronicle gave no indication that the man had spent any time in Wales, so it was a fairly safe bet that their words would be private. Of course, there was an equally large chance that Mac wouldn’t understand either. “ _Mae fy nghalon I dy galon._ ”

_My heart is your heart_. They were the same words Mac had given to him a few months ago, the simple statement that had changed Methos’ reality.

Mac’s brow crinkled at the ancient Welch. For a moment, Methos was certain that his lover didn’t get it, but after a moment, comprehension dawned in Mac’s dark, sensuous eyes. Clearly, the roots of Scottish and Welch were similar enough for Mac to get the gist of it.

To Methos’ unending shock, Mac leaned in and kissed him full on the mouth – a truly heroic gesture, considering the disgusting state of his mouth at the moment.

“You ready to go home?” Mac asked when they parted a moment later.

Ready to follow this man into the mouth of Jonah’s whale, Methos gave a shell-shocked nod.

Together they rose in the slippery slush, helping each other up. Mac bent to retrieve Methos sword from the snow. The Highlander wiped it clean of blood and slush on his own coat before handing it to Methos.

Thinking that this man was going to kill him with stunts like that, Methos gulped and sheathed his sword. Mac’s arm settled warm across his shoulders as they turned towards home. 

Longford still knelt there in the bloodied snow, his wounds healing on him even as they watched.

“It’s over,” MacLeod said to the Macedonian. “My friend has given you your life today. Be grateful for it and go in peace. If you come hunting him again, it will be me you face next time and I won’t be so generous.”

Before Methos could react to that last bit, Mac was steering him off the footbridge.

“Can you walk it?” MacLeod asked as they both eyed the windy, snow-covered promenade that would lead them back to the barge. 

Their two sets of footprints were the only ones visible among the seagull markings, which was a good thing. They both looked like refugees from a Hammer flick. The last thing they needed was a gawking audience as they made their way home.

The wind off the Seine was sharp in their eyes and faces. Methos was already shuddering in his perspiration and blood soaked clothes.

Methos snorted. “Do you really think a taxi will stop for either of us?”

Mac’s gaze roamed from Methos’ bloodied outfit to the Highlander’s own stained coat and jeans. “Guess you’re right.”

“Come on, let’s go home,” Methos found a small smile as he set one exhausted foot in front of the other.

As they set out side by side into the freezing wind, Mac’s arm settled around him again. He couldn’t help but draw nearer to that warmth. His teeth were already chattering so hard they felt as though they’d fall loose from his head.

After they’d put some distance between them and the footbridge, Mac commented, “I’ve never seen you fight like that before.”

“You still haven’t. That…wasn’t me,” Methos explained, then softly offered, “I nearly lost myself out there this morning, Mac.”

Mac’s arm squeezed tighter across his shoulders. “I know. But you found your way back.”

“Just barely.” Methos stared out across the piercing blue waters of the Seine. His emotions were so raw this morning that he couldn’t hold in his gasp of surprise. The morning light was hitting Notre Dame’s rosette windows on the other side of the river. The stained glass transformed the familiar landmark of the cathedral into something sublime, a blinding kaleidoscope of blues, reds, yellows, whites and greens.

He saw Mac turn to see what had caused the reaction, then MacLeod’s attention returned to him, the Highlander’s face gentle and almost glowing with emotion.

“You did the right thing, by yourself and by Longford. That’s all that counts,” MacLeod answered.

“Is it? This morning I nearly unleashed a monster on the world that would have made Kronos seem like a penny ante hoodlum,” Methos warned his friend. Every time he thought about how close Death had come to wrestling control away from him, he felt like vomiting.

“I think you might be exaggerating there,” Mac gently said.

Methos stopped walking. The icy slush seeping through his leather boots and biting into his already frost bitten toes was enough to make him moan with agony, but he withstood its pain as he looked into that nearby face and corrected his lover’s misapprehensions, “No, MacLeod, I’m not exaggerating. Death had Kronos’ thirst for blood and my intelligence. He is not someone you want to face – ever.”

The wind whipping his long brown hair about his cheeks and shoulders, Mac gave a slow nod, his face very solemn.

“Is he there with you all the time?” Mac asked, making an obvious effort to understand.

Though he wanted to look down, Methos held his lover’s eyes and nodded. “He’s never been as close to the surface as he was this morning. I think…I think my life bores him. Most of the time, it’s like that part of me isn’t even there anymore. It’s only when I have a sword in my hand that things get dicey. Usually, I can control him, but when I start to lose…”

Mac nodded, comprehension clear in his eyes. “You want to live, so you let him loose.”

“And every time Death comes out to play, it is weeks before I feel myself again,” Methos said.

“How do you feel now?”

“Physically?” Methos quizzed, not wanting to go where Mac’s question led.

“No. I can see you’re half frozen. That’ll heal. The other…”

Methos stared into those troubled eyes. He didn’t want to talk about it, but…Mac was trying to understand a part of him that most lovers would do anything to avoid acknowledging. 

“Truth?” At Mac’s nod, Methos hesitantly admitted, “After Death takes over like that, it feels like…like my mind’s been raped. He’s done things I can’t stop and…most times it’s all I can do to get control back from him again.”

Though Mac winced and his arm squeezed him tighter, the Highlander seemed lost for words.

When there was no withdrawal, either emotional or physical, Methos softly finished, “And I’m afraid that some day Death will be too strong to stop, that I’ll be the one who ends up locked up inside my own body.”

After too long a silence, Mac said in a guilty tone, “I wish you’d told me about this before.”

Methos sighed and reminded, “I _did_ tell you – the night we got together.”

“I didn’t understand,” Mac confessed.

“And now that you do?” Methos asked, feeling like his whole world were riding on the other man’s response, which, of course, it was.

“Huh?”

“There aren’t many who’d care to cohabitate with Death, Highlander.”

Mac’s unfeigned shock was comforting. It was clear that the idea of bailing had never occurred to Duncan.

“I’m not cohabitating with Death. I’m living with you,” Mac said.

“And Death lives inside me-”

“Where he has been safely imprisoned for nearly three thousand years and will remain for three thousand more,” MacLeod cut in.

“How can you know that? You saw…”

Mac didn’t let him finish. “I know it because I know you. Even though you do not believe it and can’t see it in yourself, I know your goodness. I saw you demonstrate it today on that bridge when you spared that ungrateful bastard. It doesn’t matter that Death comes out to protect you. You have and always will defeat him. You’re stronger than him, Methos. Death knows it, even if you do not.”

After all that heaving, his mouth was too dry to even try to swallow. 

MacLeod had such faith in him. What in the name of all that was sacred had he ever done to inspire it?

“If I’m so strong, why do I feel so…banged up inside?” Methos challenged, hating how thin and raspy his dry voice sounded.

“Because you’re not like Longford and me,” Mac instantly replied.

Not sure what that meant, Methos tensed and asked, “In what way?”

“What you told me the day we met about not having taken a Quickening in two hundred years, that was true; wasn’t it?” Mac questioned.

“Yes,” Methos nodded, not seeing where this was leading, but appreciating that MacLeod knew him well enough now to take nothing for granted without confirmation.

“Methos, I haven’t gone two years without taking a head. I’ll bet your friend back on the bridge hasn’t, either.”

“So?” Methos quizzed.

“So killing is second nature to us; while you…”

“Yes?” Methos waited, braced for a charge of cowardice.

“You’ve managed to do what we all pay lip service to – rise above the Game. You’re willing to sacrifice everything you love to avoid killing,” Mac said.

Someday, Methos was determined to count how many sighs he vented on a daily basis when dealing with this frustrating, idealistic man. “That has as much to do with fearing coming under Death’s influence again as avoiding the Game, MacLeod. The answers are never that simple with me.”

To his surprise, MacLeod grinned at that. “So I’m learning. Come on. Let’s get you home and warmed up.”

MacLeod’s arm settled back over his shoulder again, guiding him towards the barge that was still a good half a mile in the distance.

“That’s all you have to say about it?” Methos demanded, unable to believe that Mac’s acceptance could go this far.

“Huh?” 

“I tell you I’ve got a monster inside me waiting to pounce and all you can do is offer me a cup of tea!”

MacLeod gave him that same infuriating laugh the Highlander used with Ryan sometimes. Methos didn’t understand it. MacLeod was less than a tenth of his age and yet he could so often feel like a child in front of the man.

“MacLeod!”

The Highlander calmed himself with an effort. After gasping in a few icy breaths, Mac sobered and said, “I’m sorry. I know you’re troubled, but…the only monster on that bridge today was Longford.”

“How can you say that? I told you how close I came to-”

“But you didn’t do it,” Mac mildly interjected. “You didn’t want that fight. He forced it upon you. Even when you were in it, you fought a totally defensive battle until he backed you into a corner and left you no choice. Yes, when you lost your cool it was a frightening thing to see, but in the end when any one of us would have taken him, you let him walk away. Those are not the acts of a monster.”

“You wouldn’t have taken him,” Methos protested, leaving the rest to think about later, when he was better rested.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Mac countered.

“You let Stephen Keane walk away in exactly the same circumstances,” Methos reminded.

“Longford was no Stephen Keane,” MacLeod answered, something dark moving through his face.

“How was he different?” Methos asked, once again failing to understand the fine points of MacLeod’s code of honor. Normally, he wouldn’t care. It was all just so much romantic drivel, but today he was so tired that any distraction was welcomed, even the moral equivalent of counting the number of angels that would fit on the head of a pin.

“Stephen Keane gave me an opportunity to try to explain my actions. I think if I had been able to offer an adequate explanation for killing Sean, we might have parted without a fight. Longford didn’t care about anything but killing you.”

“Blood for blood, without remorse, an eye for an eye…it’s the oldest law in the universe, MacLeod. The only difference between Keane and the Macedonian is that Longford was born before the age of chivalry. Just like me.”

“Aye, but you acted with honor today and spared him. Do you think he’d’ve done the same?” Mac challenged.

“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t do it for honor’s sake,” Methos shrugged. He didn’t need MacLeod to tell him how monumental a mistake he had made on that bridge today, but the prospect of loosing Death terrified him far more than facing Longford again at some future date.

They fell silent again.

In truth, Methos was so cold and exhausted that he could hardly string two words together. He just put one stinging foot in front of the other and hung onto Mac’s greater bulk for dear life.

Finally, they made it to the barge. Methos took the gangplank so fast that he nearly measured his length, but Mac’s hand stopped his fall. Then they were inside, their frozen flesh smarting as it thawed out in the barge’s glorious heat.

Methos bent to remove his soaking boots…only to find himself toppling to the wall as the room reeled around him.

“Whoa there,” Mac soothed, catching him once again. “Let me do it.”

Feeling like an incompetent child, Methos held still while MacLeod knelt at his feet to undo his wet boots. Mac took the socks as well, then reached for the fastening of Methos’ blood soaked jeans, which were frozen stiff from his knees to ankles.

He stepped into an icy puddle as he pulled his leg out of the pants, but even that slight discomfort was an improvement on feeling Longford and his own blood solidify against him. Disgusted, Methos saw that the wetness had leeched through his jeans. His white boxers were stained all over with browning blood. Methos didn’t need any prodding to get out of those. Then he was leaning over so that Mac could remove the sweater and tee shirt he’d borrowed this morning. Both were ruined.

“Sorry about that,” Methos said, shaking with the cold as Mac held the sweater up between them to study the nine inch rip from the collar down.

“Don’t be. It could’ve been your throat,” Mac said.

As Darius’ rosary beads settled back against his neck, Methos took hold of them to remove them. Oddly enough, he felt a great reluctance at letting them go. “You’ll be wanting this back.”

In the act of removing his own soaked clothing, MacLeod looked over at him. 

Methos shivered as Mac’s dark gaze moved up his naked frame to the object under question. 

“Why don’t you hold onto them,” Mac suggested, his expression unreadable.

“But…these were Darius’…”

Mac pulled his tee shirt over his head and gave him a sad smile, “I don’t need things to remind me of Darius. I think he’d want you to have them. Keep them.”

Shivering from more than the cold this time, Methos let the wooden beads fall back against his neck. He knew he couldn’t make a habit of wearing them like this – they were too easy a target – but, just for tonight, it felt good having them close.

His stinging fingers and toes hurt more and more as they thawed. All he wanted to do was get under the covers and lie still while his frozen flesh melted.

“Bed?” Methos asked hopefully once Mac was fully undressed.

“Shower first. We’re covered with blood,” MacLeod determined.

Methos allowed himself to be steered to the bathroom. It was a tight fit, but they both managed to make it into the shower. 

Normally, sharing a shower with Mac would be a dream come true, but this morning Methos could hardly keep his eyes open. He leaned against the slick tile wall and just let the hot rush of water sluice over his leaden limbs.

The hot water was an agony in itself as it bounced off his frostbitten toes and fingers. 

Both he and MacLeod let out a groan as the heat penetrated, even Immortal healing not up to painless recovery from hypothermia. Mac reached out for him under the worst of it, pulling Methos forward so that he could shelter against the Highlander’s denser form. Methos pressed his forehead to Mac’s muscular chest, squeezing his eyes closed as the agony shot through his hands and feet.

It took several minutes, but eventually their extremities thawed out enough for healing to take place.

Methos winced when, after lifting his head from Mac’s chest, he saw the brown spot he’d left behind on his companion’s water slick sternum. Gods, he must have been coated in blood… 

Too exhausted to move, Methos watched his lover soap up a washcloth.

“I’m not an invalid, you know,” Methos said as MacLeod started to wash the blood that the hot water had failed to dissolve from Methos’ body.

“I know,” Mac’s smile was strangely shy. “I’m just…grateful to have you here. Humor me, okay?”

He’d fought a challenge this morning at this man’s request; there was no way he’d refuse to allow MacLeod to do anything he wanted to his body. Besides, it felt good to just stand there while that soapy washcloth cleaned the gore off him. 

“You are tired; aren’t you?” MacLeod observed when the playful cleansing of Methos’ genitals produced no reaction what-so-ever. A lesser man might have been amused, but Mac only seemed concerned.

Methos shrugged and stifled a yawn. Now that his frostbite had stopped stinging, it was all he could do to keep his eyes open. “I promise to ravish you as soon as I wake up.”

Mac smiled, leaning forward to give him a quick kiss in the steamy intimacy of the shower before the Highlander moved to deal with his own ablutions.

Apparently, a thorough toweling dry was part and parcel of the MacLeod special, for Methos found his skin patted to nauseating pinkness.

Then, finally, they were in the sleeping alcove.

Methos crawled under the duvet, with Mac right behind him. Those powerful arms encircled him, a hairy leg throwing itself over his own. A couple of breaths of air that somehow still smelt of their loving and Methos’ eyes were sinking shut. His last conscious awareness was that of Mac’s lips kissing the back of his head.

He didn’t know how, but somehow the events of this morning left Methos feeling freer than he had in millennia. It didn’t make sense, but he felt changed inside, subtlely altered, like somehow all those old guilts had been wiped clean. Puzzling over the strange phenomenon, Methos fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

********************


	5. Aftermath

_Aftermath_

His left arm was missing, or so it felt as Duncan MacLeod rolled over and struggled back to consciousness. Still more asleep than awake, he smiled down at the cause of his discomfort. Methos might be lean, but the man was dense with muscle. The arm that his lover was lying on had been asleep so long that there wasn’t even a hint of pins and needles.

MacLeod dragged his trapped limb out from beneath his bedmate and pulled the duvet up over Methos’ milky shoulders to ward off the late morning chill.

It was a testament to his companion’s state of advanced exhaustion that the light sleeper didn’t even stir. Though Mac could hardly blame his friend. Longford’s challenge had exhausted Methos. Hell, it had exhausted MacLeod and he had only been a spectator.

Rubbing circulation back into his smarting arm, he stared down at the slumbering man beside him. The rumpled, short brown hair, sleep flushed cheeks and curled up position all gave Methos an incredibly young and innocent air. When he saw his lover like this, it was hard to believe Methos could ever have been Death, but MacLeod had seen that ancient conqueror himself just this morning.

The transformation had been chilling. A shiver ran down MacLeod’s spine as he recalled how completely Methos’ face had changed after Longford’s blade had opened his forehead. Mac had feared his friend dead at that instant, but then Methos had rolled over backwards and riposted in a blur of motion. All MacLeod had been able to focus on was the cold-eyed stranger who had been staring out of his lover’s face after that. Even the eyes had seemed to change color, going from Methos’ usual gold-flecked green to a dangerous brown as they focused on their prey. He’d never seen anything like that vicious cat and mouse game Methos had played with Longford. The kid had been good, possibly as good as MacLeod himself, but once that change had come over Methos, Longford might just as well have been a toddler, for all the effect he had on Methos. 

His lover was right. Mac would not want to face Death. With God’s help, he’d never have to.

That was the problem with their kind. So often, the unthinkable occurred. A hundred years ago Duncan would never have dreamed it would come to swords with friends like Coltec, Cullen, or Garrick, yet all three had died on his katana. As he gazed down at his sleeping lover, he couldn’t help but wonder if the same would ever happen with Methos.

Not liking the path his thoughts were taking this morning, Mac pulled himself from the bed.

He didn’t want to admit it, but Methos’ alter-ego had shaken him. Immortals were no different than normal humans, they were both good and bad. MacLeod accepted that as a given. However, the mythological Horseman that was part and parcel of his lover was in a whole different league than most other Immortals’ bad sides. Death was a formidable force to be reckoned with, and having seen a glimpse of that ancient demon with his own eyes, MacLeod was having trouble forgetting it. He’d lain here for nearly two hours while Methos slept in his arms, trying to come to terms with what he’d seen. But the sadistic glee Death had taken in ripping Longford to pieces by slow degrees was hard to accept. When he’d finally dozed off, he’d been no closer to assimilating it.

And yet…that ruthless monster had no more to do with the man sleeping in his bed right now than the MacLeod who’d killed Sean Byrnes did with him. Mac felt that in his soul. His Methos had been as appalled by what his alter-ego had done as MacLeod was. He’d never forget how shaken Methos was when he’d finally regained control of himself at the end of that gory battle. The poor guy had puked his guts out afterwards, the entire thing obviously too much for the gentle scholar to handle.

Methos had done him proud at the end. Mac didn’t know if he would have had it in him to spare Longford. That mercy had been totally unexpected, as much of a shock as Death’s bloody emergence.

As he pulled on some clean underwear, socks, and a warm pair of navy blue sweats, MacLeod finally recognized the basis of his uneasiness. With two such disparate entities inhabiting his lover’s body, Mac wasn’t sure which one was real. He wanted to just accept his gentle lover and forget about what he’d seen this morning, but…his Methos should have bought the farm when Longford blinded him. The creature that had taken over his lover’s body and saved Methos was fully as real as the sarcastic scholar whom Mac loved with all his heart. The fact that Methos lived in fear of losing his identity to that conscienceless killer disturbed MacLeod no end, because with the violent lives their kind lived, it was entirely possible that it could happen. He had only to think back on poor Michael Moore for proof of how easy it was for an honorable man to lose control of his darker side.

Lord knew, Methos had the textbook symptoms of a split personality – intense sexual abuse in his formative years, complete lack of conscious control over his actions when his other half-emerged, and psychotically violent episodes resulting from that emergence. And yet it was different than what Mac had seen with Moore. Michael had retained no memory at all of what his other half had done while in control, whereas Methos had complete recall. 

It made Mac’s head hurt to think about it. With all his heart, he wished that Sean Byrnes were still alive. MacLeod knew that the psychoanalyst would probably not have been able to cure Methos of this problem, but at least Sean would have been able to give him an informed opinion as to how dangerous the situation was. 

Like he really needed anyone to tell him how bad it was.

Mac had seen how near a thing it had been today. If he lived to be Methos’ age, he would never forget the expression in Methos’ face as Darius’ rosary beads seemed to fix his attention when Death moved in for the kill. The raw panic there, the desperation…his lover had been fighting for his life, but not in the real world. The most important portion of today’s battle had taken place in Methos’ head. The idea of that sadistic monster overwhelming Methos froze his blood. 

MacLeod wasn’t accustomed to being terrified of the people he slept with.

He’d never had a relationship this…complex. For the last three months, he’d tried to put Methos’ past completely from his mind, tried to deal with the Methos who was living and breathing now, not the Methos who had done all those hideous things millennia ago. To find that that monster was there sleeping in his bed, just waiting for the chance to overthrow his lover at a weak moment…it scared the hell out of him. One of the most troubling facts was that after watching Death fight today, MacLeod wasn’t at all sure that he could take the monster if he had to. 

And there he was again, thinking that it was going to come to swords between them. Standing beside the bed, Mac took a deep breath, drinking in the warm scents of his sleeping lover, finding comfort in the familiar even as he admitted to himself how completely Death had unnerved him this morning. This was a hell of a lot more than he had signed on for.

But…Methos had warned him from the start that it would be a rough ride, that MacLeod would like nothing he learned of Methos’ past. While that was true, it was also true that Mac had never known a love like the one he shared with Methos. Unexpected as it was, this wisecracking, sarcastic pessimist made him feel things that no other lover had in his life. The question was, was what he felt for Methos enough to overcome his fear? The fact that he couldn’t give an immediate, pat yes to that question disturbed him as much as Death had.

Needing some air, Mac slipped on a pair of running shoes. He sidetracked to the kitchen and got himself a mug of the coffee that they’d never touched this morning, then pulled on a jacket that was hanging on a hook inside the door. Stepping over the filthy remnants of the clothes they’d worn this morning, Mac went out onto the deck. He knew if he stayed inside when he was this restless, he’d wake Methos up for sure. His friend needed his sleep.

It was still ridiculously cold out. The wind bit into his bare face and hands as soon as he stepped onto the deck. But at least the gale had cleared off the snow. It wasn’t nearly as slippery up top as it had been this morning. Huddling deep into his jacket, Mac squinted out over the water, the glare of the noonday sun off the river only accentuating his discomfort.

Glad of the warmth of the coffee, Mac wrapped his hands around the mug and stared pensively out over the Seine. A tour boat laden with tourists passed by on the far side of the river. Mac’s heart twisted as he saw the familiar logo on the ship’s side. It was the same company Tessa had been working for the day they met.

If he craned his neck to the right, he could just catch sight of the stone bridge under which Fitz had lost his head to Kalas. And over to the left, St. Julian’s modest dome could be seen between a pair of office buildings; Darius’ final breath had been taken there.

All those losses, and he was standing here contemplating blowing the best thing that had happened to him this century….

An annoying mechanical rumble turned his gaze landwards. A helmeted, black suited motorcyclist was rumbling down the ramp to the barge’s dock. 

MacLeod froze as the buzz of an Immortal signature hit him. Stepping close to the barge entryway, inside which his katana was standing amongst their discarded clothes from the morning, MacLeod waited. He didn’t think Longford would be gunning for Methos’ head again, but the one thing he’d learned never to underestimate was the power of stupidity, especially where blood debts were concerned.

He stayed tense and frozen in the doorway as the rider parked his bike and dismounted. It was only as the helmet came off and a familiar shock of red hair caught the light that Mac relaxed. Ritchie.

Though their last parting had hardly been amicable, Ryan was no cause for alarm. As Ritchie climbed the gangplank, MacLeod glanced behind him, expecting to see his sleep-rumpled lover opening the door, sword in hand, but nothing stirred in the barge. Recognizing how totally drained this morning’s challenge must have left his friend if Methos were able to sleep through another Immortal’s arrival, Mac moved forward to meet Ritchie.

“Hi, ya, Ritch,” he greeted, cooler than normal, but not exactly unwelcoming. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

“Yeah, well…I left my gear here,” Ryan answered, visibly uncomfortable. His brown eyes made a quick scan of the deck before returning to MacLeod and commenting, “You, ah, don’t look like he didn’t make it. I guess Methos whacked the kid, huh?”

Bristling, Mac swiftly corrected, “Longford wasn’t a kid. And not that it’s any of your business, but, no, Methos didn’t kill him.”

“They fought…and he let him walk?” Ritchie looked and sounded utterly bewildered.

“It happens,” Mac shrugged and settled his coffee mug on the nearest rail. “Hang on. I’ll get your stuff.” Pausing before he went inside, because disappointed as he was with Ritchie’s behavior, Ryan was still like family to him, MacLeod asked, “You want a coffee?”

Ryan’s cheeks reddened from more than the wind. “I, ah, didn’t think you’d want to hang with me after last night.”

Mac speared the younger Immortal with his gaze as he reminded, “You were the one who wanted different company, Ritch. You want that coffee?”

Looking completely uncomfortable. Ryan nodded. “Yeah, sure. Thanks, Mac.”

The barge was still silent as a tomb as MacLeod opened the door and crossed to the bar, behind which Ritchie had stowed his duffel bag when he’d shown up yesterday. 

He looked over at the bed. All he could see of Methos was the disheveled top of his head sticking out from beneath the duvet. Mac didn’t know if it was a good sign that Methos was comfortable enough here to sleep through the arrival of another Immortal. Normally, his insomniac lover sensed one of their kind before they made it within three-hundred feet of the barge.

After a quick stop at the galley to get Ryan his coffee, Mac was slipping back out onto the freezing deck.

He found Ryan leaning against the rail, huddling into his black leathers to avoid the wind.

“Thanks,” Ritchie acknowledged as MacLeod offered the steaming mug to him.

Mac placed the blue duffel bag on the deck, retrieved his own cooling coffee from the rail where he’d left it, then moved to join Ryan.

After a long, not completely uncomfortable quiet, Ritchie said, “Joe read me the riot act last night. He said I was being a judgmental jerk.”

He wanted to second Dawson’s opinion, but recognized that his doing so would be very much the pot calling the kettle black. Ritchie got on his nerves so often because, in many ways, they were very much alike. No matter what they were arguing about, Mac could always see himself mirrored in the younger Immortal’s stubbornness.

“You didn’t expect it,” Mac said, then offered, “I didn’t react much better when I found out.”

“But you still…got involved with him after learning about that? I just don’t get it, Mac,” Ryan said, his expression more troubled than disgusted.

“Ritchie, what he did was horrible, but it happened over three-thousand years ago. He wasn’t the man we know then.”

“Yeah, but…”

“None of us are innocent,” Mac argued. “We have all done things we are ashamed of or regret.”

“Did you ever kill a kid or some white-haired grandmother?” Ryan challenged. “Ever rape a girl in front of her family?”

Mac was quiet for a moment, debating his next words, finally he just said what was on his mind, “No, but I never went around picking fights with our kind in bars for trophy killings either.”

Ryan straightened, “Low blow, Mac.”

“Maybe, but none of us wants to be judged by our actions at our worst moment. Would you want someone thinking that headhunter was all there was to you?”

Ryan reluctantly shook his head.

“Give Methos that same courtesy then,” Mac asked. “What he lives with…it’s not easy on him.”

“Yeah, but…we’re talking about making a life out of cold blooded murder here, Mac. Not just the Game.”

“Look, there’s a lot I can’t share with you without violating confidences, but…Methos turned his back on that three-thousand years ago. He has spent all that time trying to make up for what he did. He’s been a doctor, a teacher, and a scholar. Every time in the past when someone has shown up wanting to even the score, Methos dropped his entire life and ran – so that he wouldn’t have to hurt his former victims. This is the first time he’s ever tried to make a stand and…I think his friends owe it to him to support him.”

“You don’t really think he considers me his friend -- do you?” Ritchie questioned, as straightforward as MacLeod himself.

Mac looked at the shivering youth he’d trained these last six years and laid it on the line, “Maybe not. But I consider you mine.”

“That’s not fair, Mac,” Ritchie protested, visibly uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry, but that’s the way it goes. He’s sharing my life now, Ritchie. That’s not gonna change anytime in the foreseeable future.”

“You’re serious? You’re really…settling down with _him_ , like you did with Tessa?”

Mac supposed that his two greatest loves of this century could hardly be more different from each other as far as personalities went. At first glance, the softhearted Tessa had nothing in common with the smart-mouthed, male Immortal Mac had taken up with, and yet, MacLeod, who had loved them both, felt the similarities.

“Not like with Tessa,” MacLeod corrected. “At the most I would’ve had eighty years with Tessa. Methos is another Immortal.”

“God, you are serious.” Ryan looked astounded.

“Dead serious, Ritchie. If you can’t accept him, you’re going to have a hard time being my friend. He’s not going anyplace.”

“Christ,” Ritchie shook his head, “What is this – a love me, love my dog standoff?”

Mac stared at this young man who had lost his life trying to save Tessa. There was so much history between them. Ritchie had stayed with him through the worst times MacLeod had seen. In four-hundred years, Mac had rarely had a more loyal companion. The idea of losing Ritchie hurt, but…the thought of losing Methos now was unbearable. He could live without Ritchie Ryan in his life. He didn’t think he could live without Methos anymore.

This wasn’t really an either/or situation. Mac understood that he was making it into one. He’d had many friends in his life who couldn’t be left in the same room together without it coming to swords. He’d usually managed to stay close to both parties, despite their differences. But this was a little too close to home for that. Ritchie was more like a kid brother or the son he’d never had than just a student to him. There was no way he could maintain as close a relationship with Ryan if Ritchie were unable to treat Methos with respect. For all that Methos pretended that he was beyond guilt and accountability for his past, Mac knew that under that unaffected veneer, his friend was hurting. His new lover was having a hard enough time accepting that he was worthy of being loved. Methos didn’t need someone knocking him down every time they met, undermining his confidence. Mac didn’t want to make that kind of choice, but if he had to, he would.

“I wouldn’t phrase it that way,” Mac said at last, “but, yeah, that’s pretty much what it comes down to. You’re my friend, Ritchie, and I don’t want that to change. You’re entitled to think anything you want, but…if you can’t treat Methos with respect, then I’m afraid you’re not welcome here anymore.”

“I see,” Ritchie was quiet for a long time, staring at him as though seeing MacLeod for the first time in his life. Finally, the younger man said, “You know what Joe told me?”

Wondering if Ryan were about to bring up Methos’ time with the Horsemen, Mac slowly shook his head no.

“He, ah, said that he’s been watching you for the last twenty years and that in all that time, he’d never seen you as happy as you’ve been the last three months with Methos, not even with Tessa. That true?”

Not knowing where this was leading, MacLeod took a moment to think about it, then finally nodded his assent, “Yeah, I guess it’s true, Ritch. He’s good for me.” After a second, he added, “He’s good _to_ me. I love him.”

Looking pensive, Ritchie took a sip of his coffee and stared out over the water for a quiet time.

Mac realized that it was a lot to ask of anyone. He had trouble stomaching his lover’s past himself and he knew Methos well enough to trust him. Methos had never really clicked with Ritchie, and had therefore had no reason to open up to the kid. All Ritchie knew of Methos was his razor sharp wit and tongue. Mac knew how he’d feel if someone he loved and respected were asking him to accept that kind of history in a mere acquaintance on blind faith. 

They both swung around as the door behind them clattered and they were hit with the resonant buzz of an Immortal so old that his very signature seemed to echo like the inside of Giza’s Great Pyramid.

“Are you actively courting frostbite, Highlander?” Methos’ acerbic voice demanded, sounding its normal self as he opened the door and stared at them.

Mac searched his lover’s features. There were dark purple bags under Methos’ eyes and his lean face seemed thin with fatigue. Clearly, the man hadn’t had enough rest. But he was up and dressed. Though concerned about Methos’ emotional state, MacLeod couldn’t help but admire how snugly those tight brown cords hugged Methos’ thighs or how the baggy black turtleneck sweater he wore accentuated the sensual length of his throat.

“Ah, no we were just…” Mac faltered, remembering that he was waiting to hear if his friendship were important enough to Ritchie for Ryan to rise above his instinctive prejudices against the kind of past Methos had led.

“Actually, I, ah, came by to see you,” Ritchie said, his face hard and unreadable.

“Oh?” Methos tensed; Mac could see it from where he stood six feet away, even though his friend’s face remained unchanged.

MacLeod winced as he saw Methos’ gaze sweep inside the barge doorway, to where Mac knew both their swords to be standing. It hurt to know that Methos seriously believed that Ritchie might be here for his head…and it didn’t make Mac feel any better when he realized that he couldn’t swear that Ritchie wasn’t. Ryan and he were very much alike in that regard. When they saw a problem, they dealt with it. The acts Methos had admitted to last night were enough to make any decent man’s blood boil.

Tensing himself, MacLeod waited to hear whatever his student had to say, wishing that Methos had interrupted them a minute or so later.

Ryan cleared his throat, threw an unreadable glance MacLeod’s way, then stiffly stated, “I, ah, was way outta line last night. I came to apologize for being such a jerk.”

Methos’ face blanked of all emotion for a moment, before he guardedly questioned, “You came to apologize for being outraged by barbarism that would sicken any civilized human?”

Methos never made it easy, not on others or on himself. Mac could see how much it had taken out of his friend to voice those words.

Ritchie, who wasn’t accustomed to dealing with Methos’ verbal volleys, seemed struck speechless. “No, I…I mean….”

“You mean that MacLeod and Dawson blackmailed you into apologizing,” Methos suggested.

“Damn it, Methos…” Mac began, seeing how shocked Ritchie was.

His lover swung around to face him, fire sparking in his eyes. “You cannot force acceptance or forgiveness on a man, Highlander. Either they are gifts willingly given or you ask someone to live a lie. I need to know where the ground lies, who I can turn my back on and how far I can trust them. Though well intentioned, what you’re asking of Ritchie will only foster resentment. I will not live that kind of charade, not even for you. Ryan must make up his own mind in this. What say you, Ritchie? Do you want Death for a friend?”

Methos’ brittle tone was reminiscent of that which he’d used on the bridge this morning. Looking at his friend, Mac realized that Methos was still stretched to his emotional limits. Abruptly, he recalled what Methos had told him about not feeling himself for several weeks after a close brush with his alter ego. 

Total street tough, Ryan answered, “From what I hear, Death’s no one’s friend.” The tension on that freezing deck rose to astronomical proportions, but then Ritchie defused it by adding, “I wouldn’t mind getting to know you better, though.”

Mac had never felt so proud of his student. He could see how difficult this was for Ritchie, who still hadn’t completely gotten past the man he’d known as Adam Pierson taking Kristin’s head.

Apparently, it wasn’t much easier on Methos, either. He blinked in surprise, stared at Ryan out of eyes narrowed with suspicion and demanded, “Why?”

Ritchie met that glare with his own brand of attitude. “‘cause Mac says you’re here for the long haul. He wouldn’t keep you around if there wasn’t more to you than the cynical smartass you play at. I figure I can tryta keep an open mind.”

“For MacLeod’s sake,” Methos specified, after casting an evaluating glance MacLeod’s way.

“You tellin’ me you’d be wantin’ to hang with me for any other reason?” Ritchie challenged, laying it on the line with his usual lack of tact. Though Mac respected the forthrightness, sometimes he wished his younger friend would develop just a bit more diplomacy.

But it was obviously the perfect approach for Methos. Mac saw an ironic smile pull at the corners of his lover’s sensual lips before Methos softly acknowledged, “ _Touché_.” 

Seeing the shudder that ran through his lover immediately afterwards, MacLeod realized how cold Methos must be out here in just that sweater. “Now that that’s settled, why don’t we go inside and get some lunch?”

“Thanks, Mac,” Ritchie grinned, “but I really did just come by to pick up my stuff. I’ve got an early date with this classy mademoiselle who wants me to show her Paris on my bike.”

“Classy, huh?” Mac smiled back; the statement was just so Ritchie. Only in Ryan’s reality did the words classy and motorcycles inhabit the same sentence. “You’re taking a date out cruising in this freeze?”

“Well, actually, I’m pickin’ her up from work to drive her home. She only lives a couple of blocks away. I don’t think we’ll get much further than her place, if you know what I mean,” Ryan grinned.

“Where did you meet her?”

“I cruised by the Hard Rock Café the other night after I left Maurice’s and, well, one thing led to another. You know,” Ritchie said, seeming his usual enthusiastic self again.

Appreciating the normality, MacLeod gave the younger man a grin and answered, “Yeah, I know. Have fun, Ritch.”

Like a playful bear cub, Ryan leaned forward to bat his shoulder. “Yeah, you too, Mac.”

Feeling like everything was going to be all right between them again, Mac laughed and returned the light punch.

He caught sight of Methos standing apart from them, the few feet of actual space separating them nothing on the emotional distance. The older Immortal looked lost as he observed MacLeod and Ritchie’s affectionate interplay. Mac had rarely seen his friend so pale and emotionally run down. It was like the events of this morning had left Methos adrift, doubting himself and everything around him. He stood there huddled in his insufficient sweater, visibly shuddering as the wind whipped at his face and hair, watching him and Ryan with the loneliest expression Mac could ever recall seeing on his lover’s face.

Always the outsider, always alone, always skirting the fringe of belonging someplace…Mac knew what that felt like. But that wasn’t Methos’ reality, not anymore. Death might have scared MacLeod spitless this morning, but not even that grim murderer’s appearance could make Mac ignore that kind of need.

He wasn’t sure how comfortable Methos would feel with him doing this in front of Ryan, but he really couldn’t turn a blind eye to his shivering love another moment. Without making a big deal out of it, he moved closer and draped an arm over Methos’ shoulders and gave him an affectionate squeeze.

To his relief, Methos simply sidled closer. The older Immortal took a deep breath of the freezing air, then gave MacLeod such a gentle glance that it warmed the Highlander straight to his toes.

Mac saw Ritchie’s eyes widen a little at the move, but the only other reaction was a broadening of the younger Immortal’s usual sunny smile. To his chagrin, Ryan looked as amused as Dawson usually did.

“I’ll catch you later, guys,” Ritchie said, holding out his empty coffee mug to MacLeod. He bent down to retrieve his duffel as soon as the cup was taken from him.

“Ritchie,” Methos called as Ryan turned for the gangplank. 

“Yeah?” Ryan paused. He seemed a little uncertain, but his smile didn’t dim.

“Thanks,” Methos said in Adam Pierson’s quietly earnest voice, the one that Mac remembered bringing him back from Hell during the Dark Quickening. 

“Don’t mention it. See you around, old timer.” With an amused arch of his brows, Ryan turned and made his way down the gangplank. The wind had blown away most of the snow, as it had from the deck, but it was still slippery.

They watched the younger Immortal mount his bike and take off up the ramp.

“He’s a good kid,” Mac said as his student roared out of sight.

“You mean a lot to him,” Methos answered.

“Yeah. It’s mutual. You had enough of this wind?”

Methos nodded, turning speedily for the door. 

Mac took off his jacket and left it hanging on the rack inside the doorway. As he did so, he noticed that their fouled clothes from the morning had been removed. The only things inside the door now were their two weapons leaning against the wall.

“Ready for lunch?” MacLeod asked, hoping to put some color back in his friend’s face. “We’ve got that roast left over from the other night.”

“That’s fine,” Methos said with a marked lack of interest.

But he followed Mac into the galley as MacLeod moved to prepare their meal. Mac worked in silence for a time, slicing bread and meat, then heating the meat in the thick brown gravy. The lush scents made his empty stomach growl, but a surreptitious glance his companion’s way showed Methos staring over at the empty hearth, a far away, not very pleasant expression on his face.

Normally, Methos would have had the table set and a salad tossed by now. They worked well together. Neither ever seemed to need to ask the other for assistance; they just automatically did what needed to be done. But today, the ancient Immortal seemed oblivious.

Figuring that a hot roast beef sandwich would do fine, Mac got the plates himself and prepared the rest of their lunch. It was only as he put the steaming meal and a beer down in front of Methos that his lover seemed to take note of him. 

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he smiled over, but Methos’ gaze had already returned to the middle distance.

Unsure what to say, Mac sat down and started eating. As he worked his way through his meal, Mac was intensely aware of the fact that Methos had yet to take a single bite.

MacLeod was sopping the last of the gravy off his plate when Methos finally looked over at him and asked in a completely uninflected voice, “Death scared you this morning -- didn’t he?”

Seeing no point in lying, MacLeod gave a somber, “Yes.”

He’d hoped this was the start of a conversation, but those beloved eyes slipped away from him again to stare off into space. Gaining a new appreciation of how Tessa used to feel when he did his own brooding, MacLeod sipped his beer and waited…and waited.

A half hour later, Mac asked, “You through with that?”

For a second Methos didn’t seem to know what he was talking about, then the older Immortal winced as he looked down at his untouched, ice-cold meal. “Sorry, yes.”

“I could heat it up,” Mac offered.

“No, thanks,” the courtesy seemed to be an effort, as though Methos were thousands of miles away…or thousands of years.

“Do you want me to make you something else? Soup or maybe eggs?” MacLeod suggested, wondering if the gravy drenched sandwich were too heavy for his friend for a first meal of the day.

“No…thanks. I’m going to go for a walk,” Methos said as he rose from the table. 

Not liking that, Mac rose as well. “I’ll come with you.”

“No…I, ah, need to be alone for a while,” Methos softly denied, still not looking at him.

“Methos….”

The cornered expression that came over those weary features was totally alien to MacLeod.

“Please, Duncan. I know you mean only to help, but….” Words seemed to fail his friend.

“Back off?” Mac completed, forcing a smile, desperately trying to lighten the tension in the room. The very air in the barge seemed to crackle with suppressed energy like the heavy air on a summer night just before a thunderstorm hit. And it was all coming from Methos. Though intensely withdrawn and silent, the ancient Immortal was emoting enough energy to jumpstart a major metropolis’ power grid.

Looking stricken, Methos softly requested, “For a short while?”

MacLeod could do nothing but nod. Letting his lover walk out the door as upset as he was went against every instinct Mac possessed, but…he’d caused this. He’d forced Methos to stay and face Longford and now his friend was paying the price of that reckless demand. 

God only knew what it cost Methos to guard the internal gateway against Death. Mac could only imagine what it was like trying to assimilate that sadistic monster back into one’s soul.

So he nodded his assent and watched in silence as Methos went to the door, donned his sword’s scabbard and the bloodstained coat from this morning and left without another word.

As Mac watched him go, he couldn’t help but feel that it might be for the last time. There had been too many goodbyes in his life for him to have many illusions left.

With a heavy heart, Mac turned to clean up the remains of their meal.

The day dragged by in slow motion. When the phone rang, he leapt upon it before it could sound a second time, but it was only Dawson, calling to see how they’d fared this morning. Then it was back to the silence of the barge and the waiting, and the worry.

Sunset came and went, leaving only the eerie howl of the wind off the Seine. MacLeod practiced his katta for a couple of hours, working until the sweat poured off him as he attempted to find peace, but the guilt and worry still consumed him.

He hadn’t had the right to force this upon Methos. He was always so sure that his way was the best way…sometimes so arrogant as to believe it the only way. It stuck in his craw that Methos preferred to flee challenges, so in a selfish prove-you-love-me demand, he’d forced Methos to play it his way…all the while forgetting that he and Methos were not the same. 

Methos had warned him all along that Death was still there inside him. He just…hadn’t understood. So he’d forced his friend to unleash an atavistic part of himself that no man should have to revisit. 

After three months of loving the ancient Immortal, MacLeod knew his Methos inside out now. His lover still talked a good game. Methos was always the first to drolly suggest lopping someone’s head off as a pre-emptive solution to a problem. The sarcasm and sharp wit all reinforced that hard front, but Mac had touched the man who lived behind that facade. Methos hid it like the trait was something to be ashamed of, but there was a gentleness inside him that was unlike anything Mac had encountered. The quiet scholar MacLeod had first met was actually more the real Methos than the sarcastic wise ass who hung out at Joe’s bar; all that sass was just protective window dressing. The idea that he’d thrown that gentle soul into mortal combat with Death appalled MacLeod.

And now his lover was out there wandering Paris’ frigid streets, searching for a peace that city lights couldn’t offer, that maybe nothing could offer.

With a deep sigh, Mac completed his katta and headed for the shower. 

He waited up until well after one, but there was no sign of Methos. Finally, Mac laid a few more logs on the fire in the hearth, left the Tiffany lamp burning low so that his lover wouldn’t have to stumble through the pitch black barge when he returned, and turned in for the night.

After only three months, it shouldn’t have felt so strange sleeping alone, but the queen sized bed felt huge without his lanky lover taking up the other side of it, huge, and cold. The sheets were like ice against his bare skin as MacLeod lay there in the dark, watching the firelight flicker across the ceiling. He turned restlessly from side to side, trying to relax, trying not to think, but with every minute that ticked by, his anxiety increased, for it became more and more real to him that Methos might not be coming back.

It must have been close to three hours later when the ringing of another Immortal signature brought Mac up in the bed. His hand was reaching for his sword, but the closer the buzz got, the more he recognized it. Methos. Taking a deep breath, MacLeod relaxed back against the bed.

A couple of minutes passed before Mac finally heard the door open. Some quiet rustling followed, the sounds no doubt made by Methos divesting himself of his overcoat. A second later, there was a sharp hiss and a muffled groan, probably caused by the thawing of frostbitten flesh. 

Damn. Mac wanted to go to his lover and offer comfort, but he didn’t want to pounce on Methos as soon as he arrived or make the man feel he had to account for his time. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. So, hard as it was, he waited for his lover to make his way to the bedroom.

A few minutes later, MacLeod saw the quiet silhouette back lighted against the firelight from the living room. A shiver passed through him when he noticed the sword in Methos’ hand, but his friend deposited his weapon at the foot of the bed, before turning to remove his sweater and cords. Garbed in his boxers, undershirt and socks, Methos turned back towards the bed, and just stood there, staring over at the somnolent Highlander.

Almost feeling the other man’s uncertainty, Mac lifted the duvet and softly said, “Come to bed.”

Silent and hesitant, Methos slipped in beside him.

Hating the awkwardness, MacLeod shifted nearer and draped his arm and leg over his companion. He hissed at the shock of the contact. Methos’ flesh was as cold as ice. Obviously, the poor sod had spent the entire night freezing outdoors.

Deciding he’d had enough of this unbearable distance, Mac gave into his instincts and pulled his friend closer, cuddling around the chilly length. He was braced for a protest, but Methos was completely pliant as he settled against him. 

After a couple of moments of quiet embracing, Methos released a shuddery sigh and whispered, “Thank you.”

Squeezing tighter, Mac offered, “Nothing to thank me for. I missed you. How are you feeling now?”

Methos shrugged. “I’m not likely to be decent company for a while. I could go back to my flat….”

The words trailed off as Mac settled his mouth against the freezing skin of the other man’s forehead.

“Do you need more space?” MacLeod asked after a time, not wanting to push. He vented a relieved breath as Methos shook his head no.

Encouraged, Mac softly requested a few minutes later, “Can you tell me what’s going on with you?” 

Methos gave another negative shake of his head, his body tensing immediately.

Wondering what his lover dreaded so much, MacLeod began to gently rub over the warm cotton undershirt draping Methos’ beautifully shaped runner’s back. He loved the fluid beauty of this man’s body.

“That’s okay,” Mac assured. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

Methos squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face into the Highlander’s shoulder so that the warm, moist stream of his breath scuttled down MacLeod’s neck in shivery waves. “Mac?”

“Yes?”

“Did you mean what you said to me this morning?”

Confused as to precisely what his friend was talking about, MacLeod answered, “I don’t usually say anything I don’t mean. What in particular are we talking about?”

“The part about me being stronger than Death?”

MacLeod gulped, sensing what must have prompted that question. “Yes, I meant it.”

Methos released a shuddery sigh, squeezed him tighter and whispered, “Thank you.” After a very loud swallow, Methos raised up on an elbow beside MacLeod so that he could look down into his face as he asked, “When you say Death scared you, how bad are we talking?”

He wanted to lie, to assure Methos that it was nothing serious, but…how the hell could he? Methos wasn’t even certain he could control his alter ego; how could MacLeod possibly shrug it off? He loved this man with all his heart, and feared the monster that dwelt within Methos to an equal degree.

There was, of course, no choice. MacLeod finally just admitted, “Pretty bad.”

Methos gave that same lost nod he had when MacLeod had pushed him up against his Land Rover in Seacouver and demanded the truth about his involvement with the Horsemen. 

The tension seemed to crackle in the air between them like Quickening bolts in the silence that followed.

MacLeod was very aware that such a frank response was more than likely to drive Methos from him again, but there was no way he could lie about something that important.

When Mac was sure he’d go mad if the quiet lasted one second longer, Methos took a deep breath. Seeming to force himself to speak, he quietly asked, “Mac?”

“Yes?” his nerves were strained to the breaking point. He could tell by Methos’ taut expression that it was the same for him, that whatever his friend was about to say, it was taking every ounce of his courage to get the words out – which did not bode well for them.

“Don’t let Death win. I know that I’ve got no right to ask this of you, but…please…don’t give up on me….”

“My God….” It was like every bone MacLeod owned liquefied on him. His stomach contracted so tight at that heart-breaking plea that he could hardly draw breath to reply – providing of course that his stunned brain were able to string two words together.

Not even discovering that Methos wanted him sexually had shocked him this much. The Methos he had made love to three months ago would never have had the nerve to make that kind of request. That Methos would have thought his case a hopeless cause and left without even attempting to fight for what he wanted. Recognizing how much trust it had taken, how much courage it had required for this man who’d known little but abandonment and disappointment in his long, lonely life to ask him to stay, MacLeod realized how far his friend had come these past few months, and just how much Methos must need him for the ancient Immortal to open himself to that kind of rejection.

“I’ll not leave ya,” MacLeod vowed, hearing how thick his burr had become, as it always did when emotion overwhelmed him. “I swear it.”

The hiss Methos gave at MacLeod’s response sounded like a knife had slid between his ribs. Mac gazed up at those weary, beloved features, seeing how totally lost his friend was. It was almost as though Methos didn’t know how to respond to MacLeod’s reassurance, like it was too much for him to deal with in his emotionally and physically exhausted state, which it probably was.

Running on instinct, Mac took hold of his lover’s shoulders and rolled them over until Methos was flat on his back below him.

Methos was quaking, no doubt undone by the strain of making that unprecedented request. 

“He’s not goin’ta win. We’ll fight him together,” MacLeod promised and then gently kissed his lover’s mouth. 

Methos’ slender lips clung to him with a feral need that took MacLeod some time to quell. Letting his heart guide him, Mac kept the kiss gentle, for all that Methos’ desperation seemed intent on propelling them into a repeat of last night’s bone-shaking carnality. Neither one of them was up to that kind of passion tonight. Hell, Methos was barely up to breathing tonight.

Even now, Methos’ skin was still so cold. His friend’s lips were dry and chapped, his mouth nowhere near its usual juicy freshness. Kissing the ancient Immortal, Mac realized that the other man mustn’t have had anything at all to eat or drink while he was out. There wasn’t even the familiar flavor of beer in that dry mouth.

Recognizing that he was taking advantage of his lover’s emotional need at a time when the man should be resting, Mac raised his head a long time later and asked, “All right?”

Only afterwards did he realize that it was hardly a coherent question. Mac didn’t even know what he was asking.

But Methos seemed to be a hundred percent with him at the moment. In the dim light, Mac could see how that brave act had exhausted what little reserves his wind-burned lover retained, but Methos met his gaze and softly rasped out, “Anything.”

Mac’s own mouth ran dry at that word. He could see that Methos was too worn out to have any genuine interest in sex tonight. The man looked inches away from another cathartic emotional breakdown. The fact that his friend would offer him free license like that when Methos himself was obviously uninterested broke something very fragile inside MacLeod. All the fear and anxieties of the day receded. MacLeod’s doubts about their relationship were vanquished by that one word. No matter what, they were going to survive – together, as a unit.

MacLeod lowered his head again for another kiss, testing the waters, as it were. 

There was no resistance. Methos just seemed too tired to initiate anything.

“You want to stop?” Mac checked, breathless already.

Methos once again restricted his response to a single negative shake of his head. Normally, MacLeod would have taken Methos’ lack of energy as a red light to love making and just settled down to sleep for the night, but there was a vulnerable expression in Methos’ gaze that seemed to suggest that the old Immortal really needed to be close to MacLeod tonight, even if he weren’t up to his usual level of participation.

Wanting to surround his emotionally battered companion with love, Mac gently kissed his way across Methos’ face, taking great care as he crossed the bestubbled cheeks, which had yet to heal. The soft sigh Methos released as MacLeod kissed first one eye, then the other, reassured him that his friend was enjoying this.

Moving lower, he took his time, kissing his way across that gamin, pointy chin, feasting on the length of that snowy neck. As MacLeod bent to suck behind Methos’ ear, Methos’ hand fumbled out, trying to work its way between the Highlander’s thighs to reciprocate. 

That was his lover, always trying to give more pleasure than he received. Mac took hold of the groping hand, drew it to his face, and then placed a kiss on the center of Methos’ palm. 

“Not tonight,” Mac whispered.

“Let me…” Methos sounded more than half out of it.

“I’ll let you do anything you want, once you get some sleep. Just relax now, okay?”

“Mac, you don’t have to--”

“I know. I want to. Just close your eyes and enjoy.”

That actually got a snort out of Methos, “If I close my eyes, I’ll be asleep in two seconds.”

“Then you’ll fall asleep. My ego’s not that fragile,” MacLeod assured, smiling as Methos’ fingers stroked over the cheek nearest them.

Returning to that tasty neck, MacLeod stopped dead in his proverbial tracks as his nose bumped against something hidden beneath Methos’ collar. He gulped, recognizing Darius’ rosary beads from the shape of the evenly spaced round lumps beneath the fabric. Methos had taken them off in the bathroom this morning before showering. The fact that he’d donned them again startled MacLeod.

Touched, Mac kissed the warm smoothness of the nearest bead, sending up a silent prayer to the man who’d owned them for any help his old friend could give Methos. 

Recalling what he was supposed to be doing, Mac licked the luscious neck and sucked around the skin above the collar.

“You want me to…?” Methos tugged at the bottom of the obstructive garment.

“I want you to relax. You’re still shivering,” Mac said.

“It’s not from cold,” Methos admitted, letting MacLeod see how moved he was by Mac’s actions.

Mac gave a small smile, then reached out to finger Methos’ right nipple. Methos gasped as the flesh pulsed to life beneath its cotton shield.

MacLeod spent a while teasing the pert bud with his fingertip before lowering his head. Settling his mouth around the dry crispness of the undershirt, Mac sucked at the flesh below.

There was nothing sleepy about the groan Methos released then. It sounded like it had been wrenched from the bottom of his soul.

Mac lingered there, learning the flavor of the cotton before leisurely making his way to the other nipple to give it the same treatment. The hardness of the cross between Methos’ breasts, resting below the undershirt was highly distracting, but he tried to ignore it as he moved his lips over it. He was still superstitious enough to be uneasy over the sacrilege of wearing the rosary beads, let alone wearing them during sex, but…if their presence comforted Methos on any level, Mac knew Darius would forgive them their indiscretion. 

The tension Mac could feel in his lover’s body now was no longer the bad kind. Lifting his mouth from the now soggy undershirt, he pressed his fingertips into the shirt and scratched his nails down Methos’ tight stomach. 

Methos’ lower body lurched up at him. 

There was no room for teasing tonight. His lover’s need was just too raw. Mac could sense how close to the surface Methos’ emotions were tonight, how much trouble Methos was having just holding it together after Death’s grisly appearance this morning.

He lowered his head to Methos’ groin, gently rubbing his face against the hardness he could feel moving beneath the loose boxers. Methos’ flesh pulsed to life, popping out of the placket as though searching for MacLeod.

Mac didn’t make him wait. He sucked that long cock into his mouth, loving the salty fresh taste of the throbbing flesh. Methos was so perfect here, so powerful. 

As he worked that growing shaft, bobbing at his service, MacLeod could feel the energy sparking between them, that same strange circuit that formed every time they made love. Last night it had been so strong that Mac had thought it would singe them with its flashing. Since they were both exhausted and far more subdued tonight, Mac had expected the energy web to be equally low key, but, if anything, it seemed more enhanced.

Tonight MacLeod could almost feel it like a physical force pressing down on him or perhaps out of him. The focal point of all that inexplicable energy seemed to be at the chakra point in the center of his solar plexus. He could feel it spiraling between them like some psychic whirlpool, ready to absorb all he was and funnel it down into the Immortal below him, the way a Quickening would move through their kind. There was a clearly defined edge to it, like a cliff that he might stumble off into a fall that never ended. 

Mac had sensed that point to a lesser degree every time the vortex formed between them. Generally, he ignored it, and felt Methos trying to do the same, even though it still grew and surrounded them without their conscious volition.

Not for the first time, MacLeod found himself wondering what it would be like to give into that incredible sensation, to flow with it and see where it led.

Deciding to explore some as he diligently worked his lover’s cock, Mac relaxed into the energy flow that he normally either ignored or actively resisted. He’d expected it to be like sticking a penny in an electric outlet when he focused on it, but the current was actually quite gentle for all its strength. He let it move through him and from him into Methos.

It was weird. Suddenly, Mac felt…expanded, like there was twice as much area to his skin and twice as many channels in this weird energy grid. He could feel….

Hell, he could fell someone sucking him off, which was blatantly impossible, as his groin was nestled between Methos’ knobby right knee and the mattress. Nonetheless, he could feel the heat, the wet suction, the ticklish brush of long lair over his balls as that head bobbed up and down as it serviced him….

But…he was the one giving head here.

Stunned, Mac realized that he’d somehow plugged into his partner’s neural network and was feeling Methos’ pleasure, from the inside out. It was unreal and teeth-shakingly erotic, like receiving a jolt of raw sex. 

Mac gasped under the rush of pleasure, feeling himself go instantly hard.

He’d never dreamed of anything like this, of being this close to another person. The sex was incredible beyond belief, but…there was something else he wanted more, something that was far more frightening and unalterable than going along for the ride to orgasm.

What he wanted more than anything at that moment was to touch Methos’ heart. He could feel another level of this connection, waiting just beyond his reach. To get there all he had to do was follow the flow in a little further, be just a bit more open himself. Mac tried to sink in a little deeper, to get a taste of the emotions he could feel below the overwhelming sensual plain, but he hit the psychic equivalent of a stonewall.

MacLeod felt his strung out partner’s entire body tense at the contact, sensed Methos scrambling mentally to shore up those barriers as he tried to resist it as they both always did.

Shocked, Mac realized that Methos was keeping him out on purpose and, perhaps even more astoundingly, his lover knew what he was doing. It didn’t make a whit of sense, but MacLeod received the very clear impression at that moment of initial contact that Methos was accustomed to defending against attacks on his mind.

Lifting his mouth from the saliva slick cock, Mac softly entreated, “Don’t fight it…don’t fight me. Let me in. Just relax….”

“I…can’t,” Methos whispered, his face twisted in a unique blend of terror and need.

“Can’t…or won’t?” Mac checked.

The lids that swept down to veil those tired eyes gave him his answer. Won’t. 

“Please?” Mac begged. “For me?”

“Unfair…” it was the only word Methos seemed able to get out. 

Mac could feel how bad his stopping the blowjob had strung his lover out. Methos needed release…now. But he needed to touch what was waiting behind those walls of Methos’ just as badly, and he knew exactly how to get through them. The only thing in question was whether Mac were willing to sink to that level of extortion to get his way.

MacLeod didn’t need anyone to tell him how wrong what he was considering was. It added a whole new level to the concept of emotional blackmail. Methos was weary, hurting, in need of comfort. The last thing the poor guy should have to deal with was another challenge to his emotional integrity.

But Mac wanted this so bad he could taste it. He could sense his friend waiting on the other side of the barriers Methos had erected between them. Hell, he could feel Methos cringing at the very idea of that close a contact. Honor and every moral code Mac had ever studied insisted that he drop the subject immediately and respect his lover’s limits, but it was like asking a drowning man to resist a gulp of air.

If he could get that close to Methos, he knew he could make everything all right between them. Every single one of the problems they’d had in their friendship could be tracked back to their misconceptions of each other’s characters and motivations. Methos was a mystery to him. In his heart of hearts, Mac believed that if he could feel what went on inside his lover, then he’d understand him better. 

Of course, there was always the possibility that greater comprehension would be an impediment. If he pushed past those barriers and found that everything he loved and respected about his friend were a sham, there would be no going back from there. Or he could come face to face with Death. It was very much a lady and the tiger situation. Open the wrong door, and he could lose everything of value in his life…or gain everything.

Mac wasn’t certain what he’d find waiting there, all he knew was that he wanted to touch it, to know for sure, one way or the other.

Pressing a totally unfair advantage, MacLeod concentrated on how much he wanted to get closer to Methos, how much it hurt to come up against that psychic wall. He took that emotion and focused it on the funnel of this weird vortex, projecting it at his lover…and felt Methos’ barriers crumble like the walls of Jericho…because he asked it of Methos. Whose thought that was, he wasn’t sure, nor did it matter as he plunged into the maelstrom.

And, maelstrom it was.

Fear…so much fear….

Fear of the demon that dwelt within, always hungry for blood, always ready to make a play for dominance….

Fear of giving into that beast and losing sovereignty of one’s soul, the repulsion and terror at the thought of learning to glory in the freedom of the kill again….

Fear of what MacLeod was going to think….

Mac sucked in a shocked breath as the waves hit him. Methos might have had some inexplicable familiarity with this form of contact, but it was all new to Mac. Those feelings swarmed into him like they were his own, overwhelming him. It was too much to assimilate: too much terror, too much hurting.

But, shocking as the emotional barrage was, one thing was completely clear. There was no demon waiting to pounce on MacLeod as he touched Methos’ inner self, no schizoid psychosis. All there was was a terribly hurt and confused man, who doubted himself more than anyone else ever could.

Mac couldn’t even begin to absorb the level of pain. Methos was burdened with such a throbbing well of disgust and self-hate over this morning’s events and the emergence of his mirror half that it froze MacLeod for a moment. The most frustrating part was that it was mostly feelings he was getting, a jumble so dark and turbulent that MacLeod couldn’t see his way out. The contact was very much like a Quickening, nothing clear-cut, just a confusing montage of sensations and mental images. Mac got a sense of what his friend lived with on a daily basis. Things done, that could never be amended. Regret…so much regret for so many things. 

MacLeod remembered suffering feelings like this after the Dark Quickening, when there had been so much guilt over killing Sean Byrnes that he didn’t think he could live with it. What Mac had felt back then was crippling, but the remorse he touched now was so intense that he could barely get his mind around it.

How did a man function with something like this inside him? It was little wonder Methos had trouble sleeping.

He almost pulled back, that first taste of what it was to be Methos hurt so much.

But…he could feel his lover flinch at his helpless reaction. That was just what Methos had feared most, that MacLeod would bail once he got a clear look at his lover’s soul. Mac felt the bitter burst of resignation that played through Methos, could feel how Methos expected nothing but to be rejected once he was seen that clearly.

But, by God, the pain was so all encompassing; how could he do anything to alleviate this? How could anyone? Every survival instinct Mac owned was screaming that he get out now, with his sanity intact. But…that wasn’t an option.

Mac knew that this was probably more than he could handle, but he’d forced this issue. Once again, he’d pushed his overwhelmed lover into doing something Methos wasn’t up to. He couldn’t run out on Methos, much as he longed for the relative peace of his own mind.

The second he made the decision to stay, Mac felt Methos’ entire being rebel against it. MacLeod seemed to hear _Not for pity’s sake, please…_ but it was as much an emotional cry as a mental request.

Pride was all Methos had left, Mac recognized. His lover’s self-respect was in the toilet right now, all that remained was a defeated warrior’s resolve to die with his honor intact…only Methos didn’t believe that he owned any honor.

It was…heart breaking.

And MacLeod was not going to allow it to continue for a single second longer.

So he opened his soul to that tormented man. As Mac reached out from the inside for the other Immortal, his companion cringed back from him, Methos obviously too burdened to handle another regret. 

As he’d projected his need before, this time MacLeod radiated his acceptance…of the fear, of the pain, of the remorse, and even of the self-loathing. He tried to tell Methos with his heart that none of it mattered, that the only thing that was important was that they remain together. 

The shock that flushed through him was not his own, but Mac rode it out, focusing on his love to the exclusion of all else.

At first, it seemed to have no effect, for, who could feel anything through such an agonizing deluge, but ever so slowly, a change occurred. 

Methos drew closer to him on that psychic level like a timid child, almost afraid to reach for the comfort he’d been denied for millennia. Mac upped the empathic pleading factor, felt Methos make that final reach for him, and then….

As they touched on that empathic level, Mac felt the eerie, psychic wind that preceded the taking of another Immortal’s lifeforce play over their epidermises. There was a moment of pregnant calm and then the energy crashed around their bed in the lightning flashes of a faux Quickening. Mac could feel every bolt hit, only, there was no pain and there was no glass breakage around them. Instead, his arousal sky-rocketed right through the roof. He felt like those lightning bolts had a direct line to his groin, he went up so fast and hard. Then every neuron he owned was exploding with sensation, delight like he’d never dreamed of.

The experience was like climax after climax hitting him. All there was was pleasure, the swirling, confusing firestorm that came from knowing the heart of true ecstasy. It was both immolation and birth, an ending and a new beginning.

If it hit MacLeod hard, it took Methos even harder. Mac could feel the long body beneath his jolting under the energy bolts, but Methos wasn’t glorying in it, he was trying to fight it. Mac could feel his partner attempting to lose himself in the ocean of misery. 

And those bolts were hurting Methos as he tried to hide from them.

Feeling how Methos’ resistance was turning the experience into the tormenting ordeal of an actual Quickening, Mac tried to be the buffering wall between his lover and the power claiming them. He stretched himself out on a psychic level, becoming a protective shield between Methos and the energy. And it changed on him, the same way it had when Methos denied it. As that dancing delight mutated into searing agony MacLeod moaned in protest, sensing that if they lost control here, they might never find their way back, that they would be lost forever in this consumptive force.

He felt Methos’ dismay over the fact that protecting him was hurting MacLeod. That concern trickled over his tortured being like cool water over blistered skin.

Mac reached for that concern, followed it further into his lover past all the destructive pain, until MacLeod found himself staring at the secret, inner core that made up the man.

And, even here it wasn’t Death he found hiding. It was the Methos who’d staked his sanity on loving a man he believed he would never be able to hold onto. The Methos who had tended sick slaves and turned his back on fighting. The Methos he loved with all his heart.

Mac gave that feeling to this hidden soul, let Methos feel first-hand how desperately he loved him, how the love he’d found with Methos had become the cornerstone of his world these last three months.

It wasn’t nearly enough to erase five millennia worth of pain and self-doubt, but it was a start. 

After the briefest of hesitations, Methos reached for that feeling like a lifeline.

They both gasped as the pain stopped and it was only pleasure flooding them from the spectral lighting flashing around them.

There was every possibility that they both would have come from those ecstatic psychic bursts, but there was a physical plane to be experienced as well…a totally delightful physical plane. 

Recalling that they were in the middle of making love, Mac moved his attention from the internal to the external far enough to lower his head again. Methos’ moist shaft strained up to meet him. Opening wide, Mac deep-throated his exhausted lover, synchronizing his bobbing and sucking to the pulsations of the energy link between them.

With every suck, that flow seemed to strengthen, the light show getting brighter. Mac went with it, opening himself to the energy, feeling it fill him, both figuratively and literally. 

Everything seemed to peak at once, the sex, the energy, the emotions. With a resounding groan, Methos exploded in his mouth. And without a single touch to his penis, Mac’s own body shot its load against Methos’s thigh seconds later. In that instant of simultaneous orgasm, Mac almost seemed to melt through his skin into Methos. He could feel the amazed joy jolt through his lover’s exhausted body, the clear impression that Methos hadn’t believed he would ever feel MacLeod’s love again. The degree of physical exhaustion Methos was experiencing was tremendous. Mac could feel how bone-throbbing weary Methos was as if it were his own body that ached, and, more than anything, he could feel the absolute love this man bore him.

And when the energy circuit closed this time with the inevitable cessation of orgasm, MacLeod was genuinely regretful to feel it go. Suddenly, he felt lonely in his mind, like a part of him was missing.

He swallowed the cum in his mouth, savoring its bitter, acrid flavor as it slid down his sore throat. He didn’t remember Methos thrusting that hard, but the back of his throat told a different story.

Releasing the now limp shaft, he shifted back up to lie beside Methos, almost nervous about meeting his friend’s gaze.

He needn’t have feared. If he were uneasy, Methos was downright ashamed. It was hard to be that open, to have no barriers, hard for both of them.

Mac rested his hand on Methos’ sternum, feeling how chill the damp parts of the undershirt were against Methos’ skin where he’d sucked. Beneath his palm he could feel his friend’s heart madly pounding. 

It took a few minutes, but Methos’ averted gaze finally rose to meet his own. 

What could one say after such an immolating exposure? Mac felt like every sin he’d ever committed were out spot-lighted and Methos had been too absorbed with his own burdens to even begin to touch on MacLeod’s emotional baggage. He couldn’t imagine what his lover was feeling at his moment.

In hindsight, MacLeod recognized that he’d committed the psychic equivalent of rape. Methos had said no, and he’d still pushed to get his way…in a manner he had never done in the bedroom. And, the most horrible part of it was that MacLeod knew he wouldn’t be able to resist doing exactly the same thing again; Methos got to him that much.

“Well, Highlander, was it worth it? Did you get what you wanted?” Methos was trying for his usual sarcasm, obviously desperately attempting to distance himself, but MacLeod could see how his friend was barely holding himself together.

They’d both had far too much stress today to take anything lightly, not that the kind of experience they’d just had could ever be minimized into the ordinary.

To remind them both of what was between them, what really mattered, Mac let his thumb flick over the chilly, damp undershirt, brushing over the nub of flesh hidden there, feeling it instantly harden once more as Methos gasped in surprise at the unexpected caress.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

“Just yes?” Methos quizzed, still looking as though he expected some type of censure.

Censure…when he was the one who’d been violated…shaking his head at the notion, Mac whispered, “Aye, just yes and…I’m sorry.”

“For?” Methos was still guarded against him, but after how close they’d gotten, MacLeod could expect nothing else. 

“Everything…you said no. I shouldn’t have pushed like that….”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Methos agreed, his eyes grave and hurting.

“I, uh, it was rape – wasn’t it?” MacLeod voiced his deepest fear. He forced himself to hold that gaze as Methos’ startled eyes dug into him, everything inside him frozen as he awaited judgment.

Wariness seeping over him, Methos softly reminded, “Consent was given.”

“Coerced,” Mac reminded.

“But given all the same,” Methos countered, the academic in him seeming to fix onto the technicalities.

Mac knew what he’d done, even if Methos wouldn’t admit it. They both knew that Methos had never denied him a thing he’d asked of the older Immortal. Mac understood that honor required that he show restraint and self-discipline in such instances, but he had no will when it came to loving Methos...and, therefore, no true honor. Not if he could plunder his lover’s soul against his wishes.

“It was…quite a bit more than you bargained for – wasn’t it?” Methos asked at last, seeming to force the question out.

“I…don’t regret the closeness, just the forcing you part,” Mac quietly clarified, feeling duty bound to add, “I, ah…you oughta know, I don’t think I’d be able to do any differently next time out.”

It was a horrible thing to admit, but he owed this man the truth.

To MacLeod’s utter bewilderment, Methos didn’t seem either alarmed or angered by the words. “You…you would want a repeat performance of _that_?”

Mac shrugged, “Without the hurting.”

Methos watched him from across the pillow for a long moment before warning, “That’s all there is inside me.”

Mac moved his hand to cup Methos’ wind-burnt cheek, trying to ignore how his lover watched the move as though he meant to strike him. 

“No, it’s not,” MacLeod corrected. 

Methos didn’t seem to want to pursue that line of conversation. After a quiet minute or two, he asked, “Was that everything?”

“Huh?”

“The ‘everything’ you were sorry for? You made it sound like it was more than just that.”

He’d raped the other man’s mind and Methos called it _just that_ , like it was nothing that the deepest secrets of his soul had been forced into the open.

“There’s more…I-I didn’t know what I was asking of you last night when I asked you to stay and fight…I’m sorry,” MacLeod offered, wishing he could take his lover’s pain into himself. 

Methos’ lips parted with a dry, tisking sound. “No, you were right. It was time to stop running -- from them and from Death.”

Surprisingly enough, despite his suffering, Methos seemed to mean the words.

“This…connection that’s between us…” Mac began, not sure how to word what he wanted to say.

“Yes?” the nervous light was back in Methos’ eyes. He looked like he was waiting to be dumped.

The fingers of the hand cupping Methos’ cheek softly stroked the red skin beneath them as he offered, “I’m glad for it. I want to know you that well.”

Those thick lashes swept down, temporarily veiling Methos’ eyes. When they rose again, Methos met his gaze straight on and admitted, “You’re…a brave man, Duncan.”

Now it was his turn to blush and avert his gaze. “It’s not bravery. I want to know you.”

“Not bravery? How many men could have dared the morass you just explored? Don’t underestimate yourself, MacLeod. In five-thousand years…you’re the first to…I never thought anyone could hang around once they saw Death, let alone what you just waded through. You’re one of a kind, Highlander.”

“So are you,” Mac replied. Trying to give his thoughts words, MacLeod continued, “What you struggle with…it makes me love you more. I know…what happened this morning disturbed you. It scared us both, but…. It doesn’t matter that you draw on Death’s strength to save you in a fight. A very wise man once told me that all that matters is that you live and grow stronger. We will grow stronger…together,” Mac said, seeing how each word shook the emotionally vulnerable man who lay beside him, shook him in a good way.

“Together…even after seeing all of that?” Methos whispered as if the concept were too much for him to take in.

“Especially after seeing all of that. If you weren’t a good man, there would be no remorse or pain inside you, but…” Mac struggled for words.

“But?” Methos seemed braced for the worst.

“But you can’t keep living in that. You’ve got to…let it go.”

Naturally enough, Methos asked the one question Mac had no answer for, “How?”

“You could talk to me about it. Sometimes just letting the words out helps,” Mac said, feeling it a pathetically inadequate tactic to battle all that hurt. But it was what Sean Byrnes and Darius always used to do with him when he had problems too big to handle alone, and, even though his two wisest friends didn’t always have some pat answer to give him to solve whatever dilemma MacLeod had brought to their door, Sean and Darius were inevitably right in that the talking itself did help.

For the first time ever, Methos didn’t automatically reject the suggestion.

“I’ll consider it,” the oldest Immortal promised.

Feeling oddly buoyed, despite the fact that nothing had been resolved, Mac smiled and said, “Good. One way or another, we’ll work it out.”

Methos actually found a smile for him. It was small and tired, but the glow in his eyes made up for it as he warned, “I’ll be hell to live with for a few weeks.”

Mac shrugged. “Don’t worry. You can make it up to me in trade.”

“I can -- can I?” Methos’ smile broadened.

“Yes. Now get some sleep. I love you,” Mac added as an afterthought, curling up around his long-limbed love.

“Ditto,” Methos answered a bit too seriously as his eyes sank shut. “More than you know.”

MacLeod opened his mouth to reply, but his exhausted companion was already sound asleep. With a quick kiss to Methos’ forehead, Mac settled down for the night, his mind filled with everything he’d learned of this man he held, dwelling not so much on the facts, but on the level of emotional fortitude it required for Methos to even remain sane.

Whatever it took, MacLeod was determined to ease the burden Methos carried. Three-thousand years was long enough for any soul, even Death, to suffer the tortures of the damned. 

Sleep stealing through his own overwhelmed system, Mac pressed his lips against his lover’s temple and gave himself over to slumber.

********************


	6. The Envy of Angels

_The Envy of Angels_

“We’re gonna rupture something if we keep this up,” Ritchie Ryan complained, the sweat gushing down his face, despite the chill wind.

Mac raised his head and peered around the corner of the six foot, wooden crate they were attempting to haul up the barge’s gangplank, grunting under the strain of holding the leaden box still. 

“It’s only a few more feet, Ritch. Keep going,” the last was more a plea than an order. Mac was about to give the job up himself. “And if you do rupture something, don’t worry; you’ll heal.”

“Ha, ha, very funny…Christ,” Ryan groaned.

One would think that a barge that had once hauled heavy cargo across the Atlantic would be crate-friendly. It was, of course, if you had a crane and a forklift. MacLeod’s remodeling had made the barge a luxury domicile, but it had greatly impacted the ship’s capacity to handle large freight anymore. The gangplank was just too narrow for the dolly they’d used to get the box from the truck to the dock edge, so they were moving the Highlander’s latest purchase up the ramp by brute force, which was proving pitifully inadequate. The poles holding up the entrance ramp’s guard rail seemed designed to catch the edge of the crate. Every time they gained a foot, they had to stop and lift the heavy crate around the next supporting poles. Even for two Immortals who worked out regularly, it was hard going.

“What I want to know is how we’re gonna get this into the barge once we’re up top,” Ritchie said. “We’re not gonna try to take this down the wooden stairs; are we, Mac?”

“Not likely. The platform’s not reinforced the way this ramp is. The crate’ll go right through the boards. We’ll use the winch and lower it through the hold,” MacLeod answered, then reminded, “But it’s not going anywhere unless we get it up this ramp.”

“Slave driver,” Ritchie grumbled good-naturedly and started pulling again.

Ten minutes later, they had the crate at the top, where the no longer useless dolly was waiting. They rolled the crate over to the hatch that was now a Plexiglas sun roof. Together they opened the hatch and positioned the crate for lowering.

“You’ve done this before; haven’t you?” Ritchie asked him as MacLeod first attached the chains around the crate, then operated the winch to haul it through the open hatch.

“Yeah,” Mac said, working the controls. “For hundreds of years, the only way anything got to the New World was in a ship’s hold.”

Mac waited till he felt the crate touch down, then disengaged the device. “Do me a favor, Ritch. Run down and free the chain; wouldya?”

A couple of minutes later, the chain loosened up and Mac pulled it back up through the hatch.

“That’s got it, Ritch,” he called down through the open hole. He worked the handle to rethread the winch’s metal chain on its spool.

Mac grinned as Ritchie came back on deck. The kid looked beat from moving just the one crate. He’d have had a hard time of it working the docks a hundred years ago, MacLeod thought, remembering what manual labor used to be like.

“I think you’ve earned a beer,” Mac said, thumping his former student on the back while on his way over to the open hatch. If he didn’t get it closed and the heat going soon, the barge would be unlivable tonight, and he’d never hear the end of it. 

“I think I earned a six pack,” Ryan laughed. Without being asked, Ritchie took hold of the hatch door on the other side and helped MacLeod secure it. 

Side by side, they went down into the hold. MacLeod experienced a weird sense of déjà vu as Ryan and he entered the ship. Four years might have passed, but whenever it was just Ritchie and him coming in like this, there was a part of MacLeod that still expected to find Tessa waiting for them in here.

He felt slightly traitorous for the grief that stabbed through him at the very thought of her. He was with Methos now. More importantly, he was happy with Methos, maybe happier than he’d ever been in his entire life, but Tessa still held a special place in his heart. 

“You okay, Mac?” Ritchie asked, heading towards the galley.

MacLeod couldn’t really blame the kid for his concern. He was just standing here staring at the crate that was now below the port cargo hatch, filling the empty space between the hearth and bookcase. Mac’s mind was filled with the memory of the last time he’d moved a crate like this into the barge…when they’d shipped Tessa’s art over from the States.

“Mac?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine.”

“You look like you just saw a ghost,” Ritchie said, coming over to hand him a cold bottle of beer.

Nodding his thanks, Mac tried to explain, “When you get a little older, you’ll find that there’re ghosts everywhere for us.”

“Thanks, Mac. I’m sure looking forward to that,” Ritchie sassed with a sarcastic lilt to his voice that was worthy of Methos.

Glad of Ritchie’s irrepressible humor, Mac chuckled. He couldn’t remember what it was like to be that young anymore. He prayed that Ritchie never lost that quality.

“So why isn’t the old timer here breaking his back with us?” Ryan asked as they took a seat on the couch.

MacLeod was mortified to realize that he was actually blushing as he explained, “Methos isn’t here because the crate’s for him.”

“Isn’t that all the more reason for him to be…oh, I get it. It’s _for_ him,” Ritchie said.

“Yeah,” Mac breathed a relieved sigh, thinking he’d gotten off easy.

But Ritchie had spent almost two years living with Tessa Noel and had picked up some of her habits. Just about when MacLeod was sure he was off the hook, Ryan did what Tessa would have done and innocently asked, “So would this box’a lead have anything to do with today’s date?”

Lulled into a false sense of security, Mac almost choked on his beer. Knowing it was ridiculous for a man his age to be sensitive about such things, MacLeod forced himself to meet Ryan’s gaze squarely as he replied, “It would.”

Amusement sparked in Ritchie’s brown eyes and before Mac knew it, he was laughing along with his young friend. 

“So, ah, what’s in the box?” Ritchie asked once they’d calmed.

Mac grinned again. “Give me a hand opening it and you can see for yourself.”

Groaning, Ritchie rose to help him. 

A few minutes work with a screw driver and lever, and the box sides fell away. 

Together, MacLeod and Ryan hauled the heavy, Styrofoam packed mystery off the crate bottom and shifted it towards the wall. When it was positioned where MacLeod wanted it, he carefully began to unwrap it.

Five minutes later when the bronze and steel masterpiece was completely unveiled, Ritchie squawked, “What the hell is it?”

Mac had to grin. “It’s one of Adrian Vernier’s sculptures. It’s called _Rebirth_.”

The piece was very similar in style to the over-sized, metallic art Methos had at his own flat. The iron black and bronze conglomeration rose over five feet in height. There was a central, vaguely phallic figure with a series of ever widening arcs sweeping out from it. The more gentle arcs at the bottom gave the impression of sea waves, while the two sweeping ones at the top bore an unmistakable resemblance to wings. 

“And you got this for Methos for a Valentine’s Day present?” Ryan asked with that discretely measuring him for a straightjacket gleam in his eyes.

“Yeah.” Mac still wasn’t entirely sanguine about his impulse. Methos had accompanied him to the viewing for an estate sale on Monday. When they’d walked into the showroom, Vernier’s piece had stopped Methos cold in his tracks. The strangest expression had crossed his lover’s face and Methos had seemed unable to take his eyes off the sculpture. Mac hadn’t been able to tell if Methos’ subdued mood afterwards were due to the art or his still healing psyche. 

They were still dealing with the repercussions from Longford’s challenge and his own selfish need to push their relationship to the very limits. MacLeod had known that Methos wasn’t up to anything stressful that day after his lover had spared Longford’s life, but Mac hadn’t been able to resist the lure of knowing Methos better while making love and had pushed that weird connection they had further than ever. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, as he always did where Methos was concerned, but the cost had been too high. They hadn’t truly made love since that night. 

Every morning Mac woke up and found his friend still in bed beside him he was grateful. For a few days immediately following Longford’s challenge, MacLeod hadn’t known from minute to minute if Methos could stay. They were both used to handling their problems alone. It wasn’t like Methos was cold to him even then, just distracted…and wary, heart-breakingly wary. 

The barge was a big place, but not that big when you needed some solitude, so he was trying not to push, trying to give Methos the space he seemed to need. But it was hard. He wanted so much just to hold the man and make everything better, but the last time he’d attempted to do that, he’d only made matters worse, so he was letting Methos call the shots. At least Methos didn’t seem angry at him, just skittish, like it wouldn’t take much at all to scare him off for good, and since MacLeod couldn’t promise with any sincerity that he’d have any better control when that weird psychic connection beckoned to him, he wasn’t taking any chances. He couldn’t force the issue again, not when Methos seemed to be working through so many internal crises. 

Anyone could see the emotional toll that day had taken on Methos. Mac couldn’t swear with any certainty that his lover had gotten more than four hours sleep a single night these past three weeks. McLeod had been trying to find something to lift his friend’s spirits, but wasn’t sure Vernier’s piece was it. That sculpture was just the first external thing that had interested Methos in three weeks.

He wasn’t even sure they were doing Valentine’s Day. All they had planned was to catch a meal at Maurice’s with Joe and come back here later. If he’d misinterpreted Methos’ interest in this piece, his impulse gift could turn into a total disaster, especially if the memory were a bad one.

“So how much does a piece of art like this run a guy? The metal alone’s gotta be worth a couple’a hundred,” Ryan theorized, calling MacLeod back from his worries over his lover.

Mac shook his head, “That’s not really important, Ritch.”

“Come on, Mac. It looks like something a deranged three-year-old put together. I could make somethin’ like this in an hour with junkyard crap. How much would I get for something like this?”

Mac bit his lower lip to keep from laughing in his protégé’s face. Two years with Tessa and the kid couldn’t remember how much time she used to spend just planning where each piece would go and getting it to fit just right. 

Finally, he smiled and said, “Twenty thousand.”

“Dollars?” Ryan gaped.

MacLeod nodded.

“American?”

Another nod and he was laughing outright at his friend’s bulging eyes. 

“You spent twenty grand on a Valentine’s Day present?” Ritchie asked, obviously totally short-circuited by the idea.

Mac sighed, the way his lover so often seemed to do in conversations with him. For the first time, Mac wondered if being with him were really as trying for Methos as being with Ryan could be for him. 

“It’s not about money, Ritch. It’s…he saw this and it meant something to him. I know it sounds excessive, but…”

Ritchie filled the silence when MacLeod wasn’t able to find the right words to express his meaning, “It’s not like a dozen roses, box of chocolates, and stop at Tiffany’s would do the job, huh?”

Seeing that Ritchie did, indeed, understand, Mac asked, “How do you…?”

Ryan shrugged and gave a sheepish smile. “I’ve been trying to find the perfect Christmas present for you for six years now. It’s hell to shop for Immortals. Anything I know you’ll like, you’ve already got. And if you don’t have it, you don’t want it.”

“I guess you do understand,” MacLeod said.

“So what are you guys doin’ tonight – aside from the obvious,” Ritchie hastily qualified as they moved back to the couch and reclaimed their beers.

“We’re meeting Joe for dinner,” Mac answered, taking a deep sip of Methos’ favorite brew.

“You don’t, like, wanta be alone together tonight?” Ryan looked shocked.

“We’ll be alone later,” Mac shrugged.

“Yeah, but…tonight’s for lovers,” Ritchie protested.

“And Christmas is for families, but Joe spends his with us,” Mac reminded. 

Ritchie’s face sobered and he nodded. “Yeah, but…”

“Joe’s a friend, and he isn’t always going to be around. We can spend some time with him on a night that can be hard on the heart,” MacLeod explained. 

Ritchie immediately looked chastened, “Sorry, Mac. I didn’t think of it like that.”

“No reason you should,” Mac said. “I didn’t till I was about seventy-five.” Not caring for the somber mood that had entered their conversation, MacLeod asked, “So what have you got planned for tonight?”

“I’m taking Claudia out on the town. Dinner, dancing, the whole works,” Ritchie grinned.

“So, the chocolates, roses and Tiffany’s will work for Claudia, hmmm?”

“Well, it mightn’t be Tiffany’s, but she’s got a thing for sapphires.” Ryan said.

“A thing for sapphires…and motorcycles. She sounds perfect,” Mac said. 

“She is,” Ritchie agreed with a very mature air about him that immediately captured MacLeod’s interest. 

It had been far too long since Ryan had been serious about anyone. 

“So, when do I get to meet this special lady?” MacLeod questioned.

Ritchie chuckled, “When I know she doesn’t have a thing for barges and vintage Scots.”

And, as easy as that, the kid had him laughing. Sometimes Ritchie made him feel older than Methos, but other times, like this, it was good to plug into that feeling of being young again and seeing everything for the first time. 

“Speaking of tonight, I better hit the road if I’m gonna be on time,” Ryan said, finishing off the last of his beer. “It’s gettin’ late.”

Catching sight of the time in the clock on the nearby bookshelf, Mac started. “You’re right. I’m already late. C’mon, I’ll walk you out.”

They stopped at the coat rack, sorting out winter gear. Mac would be glad when spring finally arrived.

“You think the old timer’ll like it?” Ritchie asked, his chin jutting in the direction of the Vernier sculpture as he shrugged into his jacket, which he’d left in here when the heavy work had started.

MacLeod shrugged. “I hope so. Whether he likes it or not, at least Methos’ll know that I didn’t get it out of a junkyard.”

Ryan chuckled, “Seriously, Mac, I think I could do something like that. Sometimes I used to hold the heavier pieces for Tessa when she’d sodder them together. I sorta miss it; you know?”

Mac nodded. He knew. It was better now that he’d found Methos, but there was still a part of him that was mourning her.

“Well, if you really are serious, her tools are still in your old room there,” Mac pointed to the little room opposite the barge’s entrance, the one that had been Ritchie’s when they first came to Paris six years ago when Grayson was hunting down Darius’ students. The tools that Tessa had kept in the States had been sold after her death, along with the Antique shop, but those that she’d kept here, Mac hadn’t had the heart to dispose of. The same way he hadn’t been able to put any of her artwork into storage with all the rest of his mementos of the dead. He’d just moved all her stuff into Ritchie’s room and tried to forget. 

Why Tessa was on his mind so much tonight, he didn’t know. Except…Paris had been their city and Valentine’s Day had always been a special day for both of them.

“You mean it? I could really use the tools?” Ritchie asked, looking ridiculously hopeful.

This something Mac had never considered, he gave a slow nod. “I know Tessa would want that. You were very special to her, Ritch.”

Ryan reached out to touch his arm. A peculiar hesitation coming over his round features, Ritchie softly offered, “I, ah…still miss her, Mac. Tessa and you, well…no one ever cared about me the way you guys did, not even Maria’s family. It was the first time I ever had, like, a real family of my own.”

Mac swallowed hard, his eyes stinging. Ritchie sounded like he was walking on eggshells, afraid that something would explode on him.

Me, Mac realized. Ritchie was afraid of hurting him.

“We, ah, never really talked about it,” Mac admitted, all choked up. He could barely meet his student’s misty brown eyes in his pain. Being Immortal, you learned to live with death, but losing Darius and Tessa so close to each other had broken something inside him that Methos’ love was just starting to repair.

“We didn’t have to talk about it, man. Anyone could see your heart had been ripped right outta your chest. I just…well, I wanted to tell you that I think she’d be happy you found someone who cares about you the way she usedta,” Ritchie looked uncomfortable at saying that last part, but resolved to get the sentiment out.

Unable to believe what he was hearing, despite the fact that he’d rarely seen his young friend more earnest, Mac challenged, “But you…you don’t even like him.”

Ritchie didn’t even try to deny the accusation. He just shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I like. I know solid when I see it.”

Stunned by how quickly those few lines had brought him out of his blue funk, Mac smiled and asked, “You do; do you?”

“Yeah. He’s gotta be crazy about you.”

“What makes you say that?” MacLeod questioned, intrigued. Joe had a much clearer view of what was between Methos and himself than Ritchie ever could. The only time Ryan really saw them together was when they met at Maurice’s, which gave him a very limited exposure. Ritch and he could do the male bonding thing with Dawson when they went to sports events, but Methos’ tastes in entertainment were more aesthetic than either Ritchie or Joe’s.

“You know that job I was trying for?” Ritchie reminded.

“The assistant curator’s job at Tessa’s old museum?”

“Yeah. Well, it required a lot of historical knowledge. Methos offered to tutor me,” Ritchie said.

“He never told me that,” Mac marveled, a warm flush going through him. He’d been hoping for weeks now that Ritchie and Methos would get past their differences.

“Yeah, well, it didn’t pan out. Some PhD waltzed in and got the job, but…that’s not the important thing right now. What I’m tryna tell you is, he meant the offer. He no more wanted to tryta pound that stuff into my head than I wanted to learn it, but…he was gonna do it ‘cause he knew it’d make you happy.”

“He’s a good man, Ritch,” Mac said, loving the absent Immortal very much at that moment. It was just like Methos to do something like that, and then fail to mention it. 

“And he’s gonna be thinkin’ he’s been stood up if we don’t get our asses in gear,” Ritchie said, breaking the mood.

Realizing that they’d been standing here in the doorway for a good ten minutes, Mac hastily pulled on his coat and eased his katana into the built in sheath in the lining.

“You’re right. Come on.”

The sun had set while they were inside. A thick fog was rising up off the Seine as the temperature dropped. The dock was damp and chill, with the smell of sulfur heavy in the air, wreathed in swirling white clouds.

Mac could hear the traffic passing on the street up above, but all was quiet on the dock. The only sounds were their footsteps and the steady lapping of the water. 

“Looks like someone rented Dupres’ boat,” Ritchie commented, shrugging a shoulder in the direction of the ship moored two slips down from the barge, where a couple of carpets were being unloaded from a blue commercial van. “What a junker!”

Wondering what kind of car had offended Ritchie’s standards in wheels, Mac glanced over at the ship. Both the van and the sedan parked in front of the Katarina were beat up and old, not the kind of vehicles people who could afford docking fees usually drove. The gold Ford LTD was an especial eyesore. The thing looked older than Ritchie. Both of its crushed in left doors had more rust on them than paint and even from this distance, MacLeod could see that the bumper was held on with bailing wire.

“They’re probably workmen,” Mac said as they crossed to where the black Citroen and Ryan’s Kowasaki were parked beside the U-Haul truck he’d rented to get the crate here.

“I’ll catch you later, Mac,” Ritchie grinned, slinging a leg over his bike and settling down into the saddle. “Have a good night, man. I hope he likes the artwork.”

Mac nodded. “Me, too.”

“Tell you what. If he doesn’t, he can have my first creation,” Ritchie promised. 

There was laughter in his eyes, but Mac could sense how serious his young friend was beneath the joking. The idea of following in Tessa’s footsteps had obviously caught Ryan’s imagination. Mac didn’t know how successful Ritch would be at it, but it sure beat bike racing.

“I’m sure he’ll treasure it always,” Mac smiled, already anticipating the look in Methos’ face when he was presented with Ryan’s first masterpiece. Tessa had scrapped her first eight attempts at metal sculpture. Realizing just where Ryan’s artwork would most probably end up being displayed only after he’d given his unspoken assent to the idea, Mac laughed and wished, “Have fun, Ritch.”

MacLeod consoled himself with the thought that whatever Ritchie created with Tessa’s tools, it probably wouldn’t be much worse than that Bonaparte bust Ritchie had inflicted upon them the first week they’d moved into the barge.

The cycle roared to life behind him as MacLeod turned towards his car. He fished in his right coat pocket for his keys, then the left without success before he remembered he’d worn his black leather jacket when they’d picked up Methos’ present this afternoon. The keys were probably still in there.

He turned back towards the barge, his mind a million miles away as he realized how late he was. At this rate, they’d be having breakfast at Maurice’s. He was halfway to the gangplank when the headlights from the antique Ford momentarily spotlighted him as it started towards the ramp to the street.

“Excuse me?” an uncertain voice called from behind him.

“Yes?” Mac asked, glancing back over his shoulder to where the Ford had stopped behind him. The car looked like it would barely make it up the ramp before the motor gave out. The rolled up carpet sticking out of the half-closed trunk looked like it might topple out of the car before it even reached the ramp.

“Are you Duncan MacLeod?” the muscular brunet behind the wheel asked.

Instantly on his guard, despite the fact that the driver was mortal and there was every chance that Mac’s neighbor had told his workmen that they could always count on MacLeod for assistance, Mac’s hand settled on the hilt of his katana. “Yeah, what can I do for you?”

The stranger’s wide face hardened as he said, “Die.”

His katana was out and moving, but not even Immortal reflexes trained for four centuries could move faster than bullets. A Sten machine pistol appeared in the driver’s hand before MacLeod had taken a single step towards the shelter of his car. 

Mac’s world erupted into a flash of light, sound and the stink of cordite, seconds before something impacted with his chest and lifted him clear off his feet. Several somethings, he realized, shocked by the speed with which events were transpiring.

The patter of machine gun fire echoed off the gothic walls of the quay at the Port de le Tournelle as MacLeod’s back slammed into the Citroen and he crumbled to the fog shrouded ground. His grip on the katana loosened and he heard it clatter away across the cobblestones, lost in the swirling mists.

The pain still hadn’t hit, but the fact that he couldn’t move told him he’d taken at least one bullet. Looking down at his chest, he could see three circular holes on the right side of his blue sweater. The red stains seeping out of them were meeting in the middle to turn the fabric into a purple mess. 

The pain blasted through him just about then, searing through his chest with white-hot agony. Groaning under its crippling onslaught, MacLeod tried to pull himself together. He didn’t know what was going down, but he knew he only had a few precious seconds to counter this. 

Barely able to breathe with the pain wracking his chest, he started to drag himself towards where his katana had fallen. His mind was a whirl of agony and primal fear. He’d seen this before. Xavier St. Cloud had hired mortals to gun down his target before he came to deliver the _coupe de grace_.

When Mac felt an Immortal signature buzz at the periphery of his awareness and start to grow in strength, he knew he’d been set up.

But the Immortal was still out of sight. He had more immediate problems to contend with. His mortal attacker was slowly approaching. Mac could see the guy’s work boots advancing on him. And he wasn’t alone. Behind the man who’d shot him, there was another stranger wearing old sneakers coming up the dock from Dupres’ boat. 

Mac raised his gaze up his attackers’ forms. Both wore jeans. The shooter had on a dingy denim jacket, his companion a worn brown leather bomber jacket. MacLeod’s blood froze in his veins when he saw the limited light flash silver off the blade of the Gladius sword in the more slender newcomer’s hand. The blade was a recreation, probably purchased through one of those Creative Anachronists’ websites, but serviceable for all its newness.

Mac tried to force his muscles to move faster as he dug his fingernails into the spaces between the cobblestones to pull himself to his sword, but his body just wasn’t responding. He was losing too much blood at too fast a rate. Already, he was feeling woozy, his stomach in total revolt.

Recognizing that he couldn’t even see his katana in the fog, Mac turned towards the water. If he could just slip over the edge of the dock into the safety of the freezing river… he might drown, but that was a far more temporary problem than the sword advancing towards him. Only, the water was a good ten feet further away than his unreachable sword.

“Handcuff him,” the thug cradling the Sten ordered in French as he and his companion stopped about three feet away from MacLeod to stare down at their victim.

“Are you nuts? The guy’s a corpse,” the man with the sword argued.

“Boss said he wanted MacLeod’s hands cuffed behind his back, dead or alive. We’re bein’ paid too much to fuck this up. Just do it the way the man asked,” the shooter ordered, moving back into the shadows beside Mac’s rented truck to survey the dock.

MacLeod had had the same thoughts. It wasn’t even six p.m. Someone should have noticed an automatic pistol going off on the dock.

But the Highlander’s bad luck held true. It appeared that none of his neighbors were home from work yet.

“Who’s your boss?” MacLeod gasped out, an alarming gurgling sound sloshing through his lungs as he choked on the question. The prospect of capture was never a pleasant one, but it was a far better alternative to the scene that had been playing out a minute ago. Tasting the blood on his lips, Mac knew it wouldn’t be long before his body gave out.

His question was ignored. The skinny man with the sword put the weapon on the ground beside him as he knelt down, pulling a pair of metallic handcuffs from his back jeans pocket.

Mac made a desperate grab for the weapon. 

The man leaning over him merely laughed and shoved the gunshot Immortal’s face down onto the cobblestones.

Mac’s nose bashed so hard against the stones that he felt it break. Painful silver stars taking over his field of vision, MacLeod felt the blood gush hot down his face from his shattered nose. 

But the mangled bone took on secondary importance as his reality was transformed into searing agony as the thug rough-handled him into the cuffs. He couldn’t keep the cry in when his arms were pulled backwards, the rough move ripping at his wounds and moving the bullet inside his lung around. MacLeod fought to stay conscious and alive as his hands were manhandled behind him. 

The cuffs bit into his wrists, closing with an ominous snick. Houdini, he wasn’t. He was as good with a lock as any Immortal who’d lived a couple of centuries, but handcuffs were in a league of their own. Even Amanda had difficulty with metal cuffs at times.

“Get the rug,” the shooter snapped.

Barely conscious, his ears ringing, Mac tried his best to hold on. But now he had the added impediment of his broken nose to deal with. The bullet in his lungs had him struggling for each breath, while the blood in his nose made normal breathing impossible.

The ringing in his ears solidified into a more ominous buzz. That Immortal was damn close now.

Confused, the half-conscious MacLeod heard an exterior noise temporarily drown out his internal tintinnabulation. 

A mechanical roar like thunder filled the dock, followed by a familiar shout of, “MAC!”

Ritchie…

Concern overwhelming even his survival instincts, Mac tried to warn his student, but his, “Look out…” emerged at barely hearing level instead of the shout he was trying for.

Agonizing as it was, Mac rolled over onto his back and looked past the man who’d just handcuffed him to see Ryan’s motorcycle cutting through the fog as it zoomed down the ramp. 

Ritchie never failed to amaze him. Immortal less than five years, and the kid had all the nerve of Napoleon’s army. His bravery came from more than the knowledge that he couldn’t die. Even before his first death, Ryan had possessed this kind of courage. Mac would never forget the day when he was investigating Darius’ murder when Horton’s hoods had him surrounded in the courtyard of that antique shop when Ritchie had charged into the fray and single-handedly rescued him, scaring off more than six grown men.

Ritchie was no different tonight. He rode his motorcycle straight into the guy with the Gladius, knocking the slender culprit aside.

“Christ…look at you.,” Ryan’s face filled with fury as he eyed MacLeod’s blood drenched front. “C’mon, Mac, let’s get the hell outta here.”

Ritch was off his bike and reaching for MacLeod, who was choking as he tried to clear the blood from his lungs enough to warn his friend about the second attacker. 

But then the Sten was firing again.

His hopes sinking, Mac watched the shock come over Ritchie’s face as no fewer than six bullets thwacked into his back. Their gazes locked in that final moment of consciousness, Mac watched the light die in Ritchie’s eyes as he crumbled to the ground beside his teacher.

A volley of volatile French curses emerged from the far side of the bike as the fallen attacker dragged himself to his feet. “Son of a bitch!”

The knees of the man’s dirty blue jeans were torn open, his face covered with blood and scrapes.

“Get the sword,” the shooter ordered.

“Huh?” the shaken attacker asked.

“The sword, you moron. Get it fast. This one isn’t one of the targets. The boss gave explicit orders about this. No witnesses and no quarter. Get the fuckin’ sword!”

As the bloody assailant started to stagger back towards where Ryan’s bike had thrown him, the shooter shook his head and snapped, “Forget it. I’ll do it myself.”

In a moment, the shooter was back, sword in hand. As the man stopped to gaze down at the two fallen Immortals, Mac kicked out at him, but the thug just laughed and stepped out of the Highlander’s range, halting over Ritchie’s deathly still figure.

Mac tried to protest, tried to plead as their attacker raised the sword upwards over his head in a chillingly familiar arc, but only a few bloody bubbles and a gurgle passed his lips.

Mac’s eyes snapped shut as the sword descended. The swoosh of the blade cutting the air and the sounds that followed were sickeningly familiar as was the pregnant pause that came on their heels as the very air seemed to draw in its breath at what had been done.

Mac’s entire being shrieked in denial as the first winds of the Quickening brushed across his face, gentle as a parting caress. Ritchie…

Then the fury fell and MacLeod was screaming as the lightning took him, his handcuffed body jerking several feet off the ground as he, as the only other Immortal present, absorbed one of his dearest friends’ lifeforce. His bullet-ridden body writhed mid-air as the energy blasted through him. Just as he had when poor Jacob Galati’s soul was absorbed into him in a forced Quickening, he cringed in horror and disgust, even as he unwillingly took Ritchie into himself. 

Around him, he could hear the streetlights popping. All the windows in the U-Haul and Citroen blew out, raining shattered glass down on him. The headlight on Ritchie’s motorcycle exploded seconds before the bike was tossed over by the power storm. There were more sounds of glass breaking, probably the nearby Ford.

As MacLeod jerked in the clutches of the agonizing energy barrage, the part of the process he’d feared most occurred – the psychic absorption. Everything Ritchie Ryan was rushed into him as that puzzling montage of thoughts, feelings and memories that made up a Quickening swarmed into him in an overwhelming rush. It was like a slide show running too fast to catch anything but the occasional image and feeling. Ritchie’s childhood was sad enough to make a four-hundred-year-old man weep, the adolescence angry and wasted…and then…

MacLeod sobbed, unable to bear it. It was all about him and Tessa and how much they’d meant to Ryan. Mac had always known he was important to the kid, but the love and sheer adulation that Ritchie felt for him were astounding. They hit MacLeod like whiplashes, the final blow being Ritchie’s last clear thought, the anger that his death had failed to free MacLeod…

And then…everything stilled. The only sounds were MacLeod’s choking sobs. 

Though he’d gotten quite an energy boost from the Quickening and healed some, the bullets were still inside him. He wouldn’t be able to access the Quickening’s energy and heal fully until he died and revived. 

To his frustration, the violent Quickening that had shattered every piece of glass in a ten foot radius and battered and singed the metal of the cars caught in its storm had failed to snap the handcuffs’ chain. He was still bound, helpless at the moment and dying.

Mac was so overcome with physical pain, guilt and hate that he was barely aware of his attackers getting to their feet and moving around him. 

Their shocked conversation sounded like it was coming from far away.

The slender man, whom Ritchie had crashed his bike into was freaking out, “What the fuck was that! What happened here? That guy…you cut his head off! My God! You cut his fuckin’ head off and…”

A clear slap sounded.

“Shut up. Get the rug.”

“But…” the near hysterical man stammered.

“You get that rug and do your job or you’ll be next. Move it. Now!”

Some noises that sounded like something heavy being dragged followed.

The next thing MacLeod was consciously aware of was being rolled up in the rug that had been sticking out of the trunk of the gold Ford. 

His body too gone to have much control, he retched up blood as he was repeatedly rolled over until wrapped tight in the rug’s coarse material. It scratched against the skin of his hands and face like sandpaper, leaving painful burns there. 

Half-conscious, with Ritchie filling all he was, Mac groaned as he felt himself lifted, bent in half, then shoved into a small, incredibly tight space. 

The position was impossible. His head was banged against his knees, which would have been bad enough by itself. Cocooned in that rough rug, it was sheer torture. The rug was so thick that he could barely breathe through it…what breathing he could do with his nose broken and those bullets in his lung. Even if he hadn’t been shot, it would have been hard to get air through the thick, scratchy rug, but he fought for every liquidy gasp, staving off unconsciousness.

As a loud bang sounded from overhead, Mac dimly recognized that he’d been shoved into the trunk of the LTD. 

Without further delay, the car rolled into motion. Mac thumped around in the dark, hot space for a while, uselessly trying to free himself from the cuffs and the rug. He stopped after a minute or so, recognizing that all he was doing was ripping up his wrists and increasing the bleeding.

He knew that he should just let himself go. His death would bring a healing and he’d be in far better shape then to deal with his attackers, but no matter what, he always clung to life until the last possible moment before giving himself over to the inevitable. 

It was hard to tell how long the car remained in motion. From the sound of the road, Mac was sure they crossed over a bridge pretty early on, which meant he was being taken out of Paris. He clung to consciousness for what felt like forever, but was probably no more than forty minutes or so before he finally felt the car stop. 

Tensing, he heard the muffled sound of two car doors slamming shut, then there was nothing but the gurgle of his labored breathing. MacLeod waited. 

As he lay there in that airless, incredibly cramped space in the torturously uncomfortable position his captors had left him in, with his life’s blood seeping out of his shattered chest, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod allowed his eyes to sink shut and gave himself over to death.

************************

“You want some more beer?” Dawson asked, holding the pitcher over Methos’ empty mug.

Methos gave a small smile and nodded. Everything was so forced these days that even interacting with Joe was an effort. His smile grew, however, when he glanced over at his friend. 

Dawson hauled out that red turtleneck two times a year – Christmas and Valentine’s Day. It was a pity, really. The graying Watcher looked great in red, though Joe normally stuck to blues and earth tones.

Methos realized that he must appear quite funereal beside his friend. He hadn’t been thinking about the date this morning when he’d pulled on this black turtleneck and black cords; although, it probably wouldn’t have made too much of a difference if he had. He’d been so distracted these past few weeks that it was even hard to focus on the material for courses he’d taught for decades, let alone concentrate on anything as insignificant as Valentine’s Day. The only thing that really got through the fog shrouding him was Duncan, and, even there, responding was sometimes an effort. 

Though, this year Valentine’s Day wasn’t exactly an irrelevant holiday. He definitely had something to celebrate. If he could just garner the enthusiasm or even fake it. But at least he’d had enough presence of mind this afternoon to get Mac something; though, he knew his lover would much prefer a more jovial companion than the gloomy specter that had been haunting the barge these last three weeks.

He didn’t want to bring either Mac or Joe down. They had both been more than patient with him since Longford’s challenge had reawakened the beast and he appreciated it more than he could ever say. 

Even now, Joe didn’t look like he expected much of a response. Dawson just gave him a fond smile and obligingly poured him another mug of beer.

Wishing he could rise above the shadows Death had left in his mind, Methos stared around the noisy bar.

Maurice’s was packed again tonight. It wasn’t quite the standing room only crowd that one of Dawson’s concerts packed in, but the holiday had certainly upped the Wednesday night trade.

“Mac’s late,” Joe commented.

“You’re not in on it, then, I take it?” Methos questioned with a sardonic flair, his gaze moving to his companion.

“In on it?” Joe echoed without a trace of subterfuge.

Methos looked deep into his friend’s eyes. Dawson was one of the straightest players Methos had encountered, but the man was still capable of running a totally convincing scam, unlike Mac, who was never able to lie to a close friend.

As far as he could tell, Joe was on the level.

“He’s up to something. It’s pathetic, really, how obvious he can be. For a while there, I was beginning to think he was having an affair, but then I realized what today is,” Methos confessed self-deprecatingly. Joe Dawson was about the only person on Earth he could tell a thing like that to.

“An affair?” Dawson guffawed. “ _MacLeod_?”

Methos sighed. His Boy Scout even had his Watcher snookered. “Don’t look so shocked, Joe. He’s done it before. He might be perfect, but he is still a man.”

“When did Duncan MacLeod ever have an affair behind someone’s back?” Joe demanded.

“When he cheated on Kristin with Louise Barton in 1660.”

“I forgot about that,” Joe sheepishly admitted.

“Yes, well, he isn’t entirely without depth, for all that he works at being square,” Methos said.

“You really thought he was cheatin’ on ya?” Joe’s shock should have been reassuring. 

In his normal state, it would have been, but tonight it only made him feel foolish.

Shrugging, Methos quietly admitted, “I couldn’t really blame him. I haven’t exactly been the best of company lately.”

That was an understatement worthy of MacLeod. That strange psychic energy channel that had formed between them had freaked Methos so much that they’d barely had sex these last three weeks. To his utter incomprehension, Mac hadn’t pushed the issue, nor had he withdrawn. The Highlander had just been there with him, holding him when Methos needed the comfort, letting him sulk at other times.

“Have you heard anyone complainin’?” Joe gently demanded.

“No, but--”

“There are no buts. He’s been worried outta his mind these last few weeks over you.” Joe paused before adding, “We both have.”

Methos looked down at his beer for a moment before meeting Joe’s concerned blue gaze again, “I know. I appreciate it.”

Wishing he’d kept his fool mouth shut, Methos stared back down into his mug.

To his eternal gratitude, Joe changed the subject, “So, what made you think he was sneakin’ around?”

Methos snorted, “We had five hang up calls while he was in the shower yesterday evening, three yesterday morning and six the night before.”

“Must be Ritchie,” Joe grinned. 

“So, I gather,” Methos drolly replied. “You really don’t know what he’s got planned?”

“Nope, I’m definitely outta the loop on this one, man,” Joe laughed. “But be prepared. Subtle, he ain’t!”

“Tell me about it,” Methos groused.

“Did you…” Joe started and fell silent.

“Yes?” Methos prodded.

Looking uncomfortable, Joe shifted in his chair and awkwardly admitted, “I was gonna ask if you got him anything before I realized it was nunna my business.”

Now it was Methos’ turn to squirm. “I, ah…MacLeod doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to the opera next month.”

Joe howled with laughter. “You _hate_ the opera.”

Methos raised his eyebrows and slowly nodded, “I do. I’ve abhorred and avoided that infernal caterwauling for over two hundred years. But this afternoon, I paid scalpers’ prices for front row seats.”

“My God, you’ve got it bad!” Joe laughed, but his eyes were warm and gentle, totally approving.

“Tell me about it.”

Joe lifted his mug towards him, “To having it bad!”

Strangely buoyed by the silly toast, Methos tapped his own pint against Joe’s. “Here, here.”

They drank in silence for a few minutes before Joe asked, “So, what opera are you inflicting upon yourself?”

Methos winced. “ _La Boheme_.”

“Ah,” Joe was obviously trying to keep from laughing in his face again.

“You look like you have indigestion. Just say whatever’s on your mind,” Methos counseled.

His grin fit to split his face right open, Dawson shook his head, “No, my momma didn’t raise no fools. She always said…” the first few bars of A Little Night Music sounded from Dawson’s jacket pocket, interrupting his words. As Joe fished around in his pocket for his cellphone, he finished with, “…to remember to turn your damn cell phone off if you want to have a good night.”

“Mozart?” Methos enquired with a rise of his brows.

Finally locating the ringing phone, Dawson shrugged. “They didn’t have any Coltrain.” Flipping open the mobile phone, Joe said, “Dawson.”

As Dawson took his call, Methos took a handful of pretzels from the dish in the center of their table and washed it down with another swig of beer. He was actually hungry tonight. These last few weeks he’d had next to no appetite.

Methos’ attention snapped to his companion as Joe’s voice abruptly changed to one of complete shock, “What? Slow down, Jim. Say again.”

Methos watched the color rush from his friend’s face as Dawson’s long lashed eyes squeezed tightly shut. 

“Damn,” he’d never heard Joe sound so sick at heart, even when MacLeod was mad as hell at them both over the Shapiro/Galati affair. “What about MacLeod?”

Those three words froze his blood. Abruptly, a hundred percent in the present, Methos watched that lined face, looking for any hint of what had occurred. Whatever it was, it was damned bad. Joe looked like he was about to toss his cookies.

“No-no, don’t do anything,” Joe said, sounding amazingly calm. “I’ll be right there.”

“What?” Methos demanded as Joe snapped his phone closed. He almost wasn’t able to wait out the deep breath Dawson took before speaking. A chill breathing down his spine, Methos noticed the tears standing clear in his friend’s eyes.

“That was Jimmy Ash, Ritchie’s Watcher. Ritchie got whacked tonight right in front of the barge.”

Everything froze inside him for a second as he absorbed the meaning of the words.

When he could speak, Methos asked the only thing important to him, “What about MacLeod?” 

Dawson shrugged. “I don’t know. The kid’s hysterical. I’ve gotta…”

“Come on,” Methos said, taking his friend’s elbow and helping him from his chair. Methos paused long enough to peel enough money from his bill roll to cover their pitcher of beer. Then he grabbed their coats and hustled Dawson to his Land Rover.

It was fifteen minutes before they even got to the barge. Neither of them said a word during that time, they just sat there silently urging the snarled traffic to move.

Methos knew something was wrong the minute he turned down the ramp onto le Port de le Tournelle. The dock looked like a bomb – or a Quickening – had hit it. Every street lamp was out. The Land Rover’s headlights bounced off the swirling fog, finally picking out the blond-haired man standing beside a U-Haul truck with blown out windows. Beyond the rented truck, Methos could see Mac’s Citroen. Fog was swirling like ghosts through its blasted out windows. There were several motionless shapes barely visible on the ground in front of Mac’s car. One of them looked like it might be a fallen motorcycle; while the other…

Methos brought his SUV to a halt in front of the U-Haul, where the solitary figure was waiting with its arms crossed across its chest, head bowed and shoulders shaking. Methos didn’t need to ask Dawson to know that this must be the first assignment the young Watcher had lost to a Quickening.

As he opened his car door and hurried around the other side to assist Joe, the stench of blood in the air and that unmistakable smell of burnt flesh that was peculiar to a Quickening told Methos what the other unidentified object by the Citroen must be. 

“Ash?” Dawson called out as he approached the visibly shaken Watcher, moving slowly over the slick cobblestones.

A single glance at the Watcher told Methos all he needed to know. The curly blond hair, affable, tear-stained face…the kid was barely older than Ryan. Though the Watcher might surprise him, Ash’s state pretty much made Methos discount him as any kind of an asset. They’d be lucky if they got a coherent description of the Immortal who’d done this…

Methos left Joe with the sobbing youth. Slowly, he approached the Citroen, almost afraid of what he’d find. 

Ryan was there in two very distinct and separate pieces. The lack of blood in the immediate area of the body testified to the Quickening that had taken place. The wound always cauterized too fast for there to be much in the way of a spray.

Sick at heart over the waste of such a young spirit, Methos’ gaze moved on. It passed over the Citroen, returning to the car only as an anomaly caught his attention. Ritchie’s body was a good four feet away from Mac’s car and yet there was the lurid red trace of blood on the chrome bumper up front. As he got closer, Methos realized that the puddle that he’d thought was water by the front wheel was actually a small pool of blood. 

While he was bending down for a closer look, a flash of silver through the shifting fog on the ground off to his left caught his attention. Methos moved to where he’d seen the flash. A couple of minutes searching through the thick, clammy fog and his fingers contacted the sleek coldness of a blade. Methos gingerly followed the outline of the weapon to its hilt. The familiar shape of that carved ivory dragon beneath his fingers just about stopped his heart. Mac’s katana…

Methos’ eyes squeezed shut. Just barely, he held himself together. He was not ready for this, not now, not so soon….

For the last three weeks, he’d felt more dead than alive inside, but there was no mistaking his state right now. Dead men didn’t feel this kind of pain. They laid there like poor, pathetic Ryan, oblivious to the ravages time would have on their abandoned flesh; insensate as Duncan MacLeod might be a few feet further down the dock in the fog or at the bottom of the Seine.

Methos stopped that line of thought immediately, unwilling to go there. He hadn’t felt Mac die. He was close enough to the Highlander that he should have known if Mac were taken, the way he’d known when dozens of his closest friends had died over the years. But…he hadn’t felt Byron or Kaspian die, either, not that he’d been particularly close to either of them emotionally at the time of their deaths, but he was so out of it these last three weeks that it was entirely possible he’d miss a beheading if it happened right in front of him.

Still, until he knew for sure, he was going to assume that Mac was alive. He had to. The only thing that the alternative would lead to was madness.

Reviewing the circumstances, Methos realized that there had to have been two Immortal attackers. MacLeod would never have allowed a stronger Immortal to challenge his student and then walk away unscathed. The only way a headhunter would have taken Ryan and lived was if he’d had a companion to handle MacLeod…and if that was the way this had played out, there was going to be hell to pay for everyone involved. Methos might have given up revenge centuries ago, but Death hadn’t and, for whatever reason, Death wanted a piece of these culprits.

This type of blow the last thing his barely reintegrated spirit needed, Methos tried to put all thoughts of revenge from his mind and concentrate on finding out what had happened. For the sakes of everyone, including himself, he dare not let Death out again, and, yet, the temptation was there, almost too sweet to resist. Death didn’t mourn; Death didn’t hurt. All Death did was kill…and right now Methos wanted to kill, so bad he could taste it. 

Thrusting the thought from his mind, Methos lifted the katana from the foggy cobblestones and stalked back to where Joe was dealing with an armful of sobbing hysteria.

“I know we trained for this, Joe,” Ash was blubbering, “but….”

“What happened to MacLeod?” Methos snapped in his most authoritative tone, interrupting the weeping Watcher.

“W-what?” Ash focused on him with an effort, his blue eyes almost Technicolor with the contrast they made against his red-ribboned sclera. “W-who are you?”

“This is Adam Pierson. He used to work in Research,” Dawson said.

Ash’s red eyes examined Methos. “I’ve seen you before. With Ryan and MacLeod.”

“Yeah,” Joe confirmed, “You know MacLeod and I are friends. Adam’s a friend of theirs as well.”

If this devolved into a debate on Watchers’ Oaths, Methos was going to use Mac’s katana on someone. 

To his relief, Ash seemed too shell-shocked to question Joe. He simply nodded his acceptance and went back to shaking.

Time pressing upon him, Methos reminded, “Duncan MacLeod. He was with Ryan when they were attacked. How many Immortals were there and what did they look like? Did you recognize them from our files?”

“Adam…” Joe’s voice had that warning tone, but Methos was having none of it. Every minute they delayed, Ryan’s killers got further away.

This was hard on them all. Joe’s eyes were almost as red as the young Watcher’s. Belatedly, Methos recognized that Dawson was fully as fond of Ryan as he was of MacLeod, so Ryan’s death alone was already a personal tragedy to Joe.

“They-they weren’t Immortals,” Ash stammered, pulling himself together with a visible effort.

Both Joe and he voiced “What?” at the same moment.

“I-I thought at first that they were Immortal, but…when they killed Ritchie….” Ash said.

“Okay, Jimmy,” Joe calmly interrupted. “Start at the beginning.”

Taking a deep breath, Ash started to give a fairly decent Watcher’s report to his superior, “Ryan came here around four this afternoon and he and MacLeod went to rent a truck to move a crate. After they got the crate in the barge, Ryan and MacLeod went inside for about a half hour. I was up on the overpass on the street above, waiting for Ryan to leave. When they came out, I got my bike started when Ryan mounted his. I followed him half a block down the river road, when we heard gunfire coming from behind us. Ryan turned his bike around and went back. I followed him.”

Ash pulled in another shaky breath.

“And then?” Joe gently prodded. 

“All hell broke loose, Joe. I never saw anything like it. MacLeod was down. There were two men on the dock. The one in the shadows had a machine pistol; the one over MacLeod had a sword. I got back in place just in time to see Ryan go crashing into the guy with the sword. He…he didn’t react to the guy with the gun, acted like he wasn’t even there, so…I thought that guy must’ve been mortal. The guy with the gun shot Ritchie from behind.”

“And then the other man took his head?” Joe asked when the kid seemed too overcome with emotion to finish.

“What happened, Ash?” Methos demanded in that same, no-nonsense voice he’d used earlier. It had focused warriors for millennia. It worked just as effectively on the overwrought Watcher.

Ash swallowed and said, “The shooter picked up the sword and…he used the sword. Then…the Quickening started, but it didn’t go to the killer. It-it went to MacLeod. He was screaming like a wounded animal, yelling ‘no’ as he tried to get away from it, but….”

Methos gasped in a breath, unable to conceive what his lover must have been feeling at that moment. 

“It’s okay, Jim,” Joe said into the horrified silence that fell.

Dawson’s comment had to be the most imbecilic statement Methos had heard this millennium. This was as far from being all right as it was possible for a scenario to get.

But Joe’s intent became clear when he asked in that same gentle tone, “So what happened to MacLeod afterwards, Jim? Is-is MacLeod dead?”

No one needed to tell Dawson how vulnerable an Immortal was in those few vital minutes after the Quickening was absorbed. Watching the Highlander, Dawson had certainly seen enough of them. A child could take an Immortal’s head at such a time.

Methos closed his eyes waiting to hear the worst.

“They rolled MacLeod up in a rug, stuck him in the trunk of their car and drove off,” Ash reported.

“And you didn’t follow them?” Methos snarlred.

The kid gulped and backed up a few steps. “No, I…I….”

Joe sighed, “Ease up, Adam. Jim was assigned to Ritchie. There’s no reason for him to have followed MacLeod. He was just doing his job.”

Dawson was being kind. From the look of the young Watcher, it was clear that Ash had been in no state to follow anybody.

“So what do we do now, Mr. Dawson? Ritchie…Ryan…he’s still over there….” Ash began.

“We call the police,” Methos said.

“What?” Both Watchers asked in unison.

“Those men are mortal. They might be working for an Immortal, but right now, this is still not part of the Game. If we can get an APB out on that car, we might have a chance of finding MacLeod,” Methos explained.

“But…we’re just supposed to watch, not interfere…” Ash stammered.

“We’re not supposed to interfere with the Game. This isn’t part of it – yet. If we move fast enough, it mightn’t be,” Methos said.

“How’re we gonna explain any of this?” Joe asked, looking doubtful – for good reason. 

Methos was standing with a sword in hand and another concealed in his coat not ten feet from a headless corpse. Under the best of circumstances, this would be a sticky situation to talk one’s way out of. 

“Jimmy here stood by and _watched_ it all happen without calling the police,” Joe continued, “He can’t tell them that.”

Methos held onto his temper only through an act of will. This was so outside of a Watcher’s usual modus operandi that it was a wonder either man was still standing here. Normally, a Watcher melted into the scenery when his assignment lost a Challenge. No one wanted to be found as a witness by either the winning Immortal or the authorities. What Methos was asking went against all the rules, but then, so did befriending one’s assignment,

“”No, of course, he can’t,” Methos assured. “We’ve all got to stick to the same story if this is going to work. Joe, you and I were exactly where we were – at Maurice’s. Jim, you are a friend of Ryan’s. You and Ryan planned to meet at MacLeod’s to join us all for dinner. When you got here, you saw some strange electrical discharge fading into the air as the killers wrapped MacLeod up in a rug and put him in the trunk of their car.” 

“You want him to mention the Quickening?” Dawson asked, eyeing him like he’d lost his mind.

“Joe, take a look around this place. Ryan’s wound is cauterized. The Citroen, U-Haul and motorcycle have had the paint burned right off them. The police are going to know something strange happened here. And there are bound to be other witnesses to the light show, if nothing else. It’s better if Ash sticks to as much of the truth as possible,” Methos insisted. 

“Do you really think that the police are gonna be able to help us track down Mac?” Joe questioned, looking as dispirited as Methos had ever seen the Watcher.

Despite what Joe might believe, he was not in the habit of lying to his friends. Methos took another deep breath and hesitantly admitted, “No.”

Joe jumped right on his response, “Then why bring them in? We can….” 

“What? Wrap Ritchie’s body up and bury him in a shallow grave in a field somewhere?” Methos could see from Joe’s pained expression that that was exactly what the Watcher was suggesting. Already, he could hear a siren wailing in the distance. It was probably headed for an unrelated incident, but he couldn’t be sure of that. Their time here was limited and they had to get their stories straight before the police showed up to investigate the light show. That, more than anything was going to attract attention. “There is every chance that we will get stopped before we leave the dock. The Quickening was not subtle. There are bound to be emergency vehicles on the way even as we speak. I for one would rather not be caught with a sword in my coat and a headless corpse in the trunk. We do not have time to run damage control.”

What precious time they’d had they’d lost getting here through traffic, dealing with the hysterical Watcher and handling their own grief, Methos recognized.

“So why not just fade?” Joe challenged, voicing the most prudent path.

“Aside from the fact that someone might take note of our leaving the scene of the crime?” Methos asked before continuing with, “Someone has to stay to ensure that Mac doesn’t get blamed for this.”

“What?” Joe gawked.

“If all three of us pull a vanishing act, there’s going to be no one here to report MacLeod’s abduction. The police are going to find a headless corpse on Mac’s front door – a known associate with whom MacLeod has been seen to have numerous public disagreements. They’re going to find MacLeod gone and no less than two-dozen swords stored on the barge. If you were the detective assigned to this case, who would your first suspect be?”

“You can be a sarcastic sun-uv-a-bitch sometimes,” Joe groused, but Methos could tell that his friend had seen the sense of his argument.

“What-what should we do, Joe?” Ash asked. From the looks of him, breathing was taking more conscious effort than the shocked youth was capable of at the moment.

“I hate to say it, but he’s right. We can’t let MacLeod take the fall for this and…there’s still a chance an APB could find that car. You did get the license plate, didn’t you?” Joe checked. At Ash’s nod, Joe gave one of his own. “Okay, I’m gonna call this in. One thing – where’s your cellphone, Jim?”

Ash dug around in his black motorcycle jacket pocket, then proffered his phone with a trembling hand. Not removing his gloves, Joe accepted it.

Both Methos and Ash jumped as Dawson dashed the cellphone down onto the cobblestones. The battery fell off and the phone itself splintered into at least a dozen pieces.

“Why’d you do that?” the shocked Ash stammered.

“Because most people would’ve called the cops by now,” Joe explained. “Jimmy, listen close and remember this – You were too shaken by the kidnapping to think straight; you called us in a panic and dropped the phone.”

Methos didn’t think the kid was going to have to do much acting to convince the police of that last bit.

Joe’s gaze turned his way, “Meth…I mean, Adam, we came right over because we weren’t sure what happened, just that something bad had gone down and Ash was upset.” Those emotion-fraught blue eyes dug into Methos’ own. “Is there anything I’m forgetting?”

“Not that I can see. Make the call, Joe,” Methos ordered.

They both listened as Joe dialed the police and reported the discovery of a body. 

Methos had barely returned from stowing MacLeod and his own weapons in the false bottom built into the trunk of his Land Rover when a police car with flashing blue lights and screaming sirens came barreling down the ramp, followed close on its proverbial heels by a yellow emergency vehicle, which was no doubt here to check out reports of an electric explosion. The quiet, foggy dock was transformed in a short time into a circus of flashing lights, police and emergency vehicles.

The next hour was a blur of endless, inane questions. 

Methos told his portion of their story so many times that he felt like an over-coaxed actor, whose material was so stale from the re-telling that he couldn’t manage a bit of believability. However, he was relieved to see that after the gendarme finished interviewing Ash, an APB was put out on the gold Ford that had abducted MacLeod. They were in their fourth round of the _could you repeat your information just one more time, sir_ game when the coroner’s wagon arrived with yet another police car.

The professionalism of the tall, slender man with the severely receding hairline in the gray suit who emerged from the passenger side of the police car immediately impressed Methos. He’d ruled too long not to recognize the air of a leader.

The balding man strode to where Ritchie Ryan’s body now lay covered with a sheet, knelt down and uncovered the corpse. Methos, who was watching closely, noted how the man not only held onto the contents of his stomach, but actually looked saddened for a moment as he stared down at Ritchie’s remains before his professional mask settled back into place on his angular, gawky features. Then he rose to join the small crowd of officials who surrounded Joe, Ash and himself.

“What have we got, Maret?” the new arrival asked of the uniformed officer who’d been trying to poke holes in their statements for the last hour. The stocky brunet appeared worn by his lack of success. The man was bright enough to sense that his witnesses were hiding something, but not quite astute enough to determine what the lie was.

“Inspector Lebrun,” Maret greeted and gave a hapless sigh. An alarm bell went off inside Methos’ head when he heard the Inspector’s name. It was familiar, but he didn’t know from where. He listened closely as Maret continued with, “You saw the corpse, sir. The victim was shot six times in the back and beheaded by a missing weapon. One of the witnesses reports that he saw another man forcibly abducted from the scene, presumably by the murderers.”

“Who discovered the body?” Lebrun asked, eyeing the three of them with the suspicion any cop would accord people hanging around such a grisly murder site. Methos knew as well as the inspector did that more than seventy-five percent of the time, the person who reported finding a body was also the person responsible for turning a fellow human into an inanimate piece of meat.

“I did,” Jim Ash said. He was more composed than before, but the young Watcher now had a blankness about him that was more worrisome than his earlier breakdown.

Methos, who was experiencing a similar state of disassociation, could well sympathize with Ash. They were all worn out from the trauma and questions. Dawson was positively gray at the moment. At least the gendarmes had taken mercy on Joe and allowed the legless Watcher to sit in the backseat of the nearest patrol car. Methos and Ash were standing beside the open car door. Nobody was up to conversation at the moment, but at least they could keep Dawson company.

“And you are?” Lebrun demanded of each in turn, asking them to state their business at the barge afterwards.

“And you are all friends of both Duncan MacLeod and Ritchie Ryan?” Lebrun quizzed when they’d all parroted their tales again.

“Richard Redstone,” Maret timidly proffered.

“What?” Lebrun glanced over at his subordinate, visible irritation in his face. Obviously, this was not a man who suffered fools lightly.

“The victim’s name was Richard L. Redstone, Inspector,” Maret offered the name of the identity Ritchie had assumed after his very public death on the racetrack last year.

“You’re mistaken, Maret,” Lebrun corrected. “I know this man. I’ve interviewed him before. His name is Richard Ryan. He lives, I mean lived, here with Duncan MacLeod. MacLeod was his legal guardian.”

“His license and passport say Richard Redstone, sir,” Maret insisted.

“Do they? Have you called them in yet?” When Maret gave a negative shake of his head, Lebrun ordered, “Well, get on it now, man. And when you do, check out Richard Ryan as well. I want to know what’s going on here. Where is Duncan MacLeod?”

“That seems to be the $64,000 question,” Methos snapped, lacking the patience to wait out the Keystone cops routine.

“What?” Lebrun asked, almost as short-temperedly.

“Our friend here saw Duncan MacLeod abducted,” Methos reported, gesturing towards Ash. “We’ve been trying to get someone to act on it for the last hour. Perhaps you would be so kind as to at least put out a missing person’s report?”

His sarcasm was not lost on the Inspector. 

“MacLeod’s been kidnapped?” Lebrun questioned, his disbelief plain.

“That is what we have been trying to tell your men for the last hour,” Methos kept hold of his temper, just. “Why do you find that so difficult to believe?”

Lebrun shrugged, “Perhaps because the last time I encountered your friend MacLeod, he had also been abducted. There was a headless corpse involved in that case, as well.”

Bingo, the name clicked. The MacLeod Chronicle. Joe had documented Lebrun as the detective who had handled both the Kuyler and St. Cloud cases. It was no wonder Lebrun was skeptical.

“If I remember MacLeod’s file, that was not the first time he was associated with this type of murder. He was also questioned about a headless corpse found on a bridge in his hometown six and a half years ago,” Lebrun said. “And he was brought in for menacing a Warren Cochrane with a sword two years ago.”

“Look,” Methos argued, no longer even attempting to hold onto his temper, “I don’t know anything about these other cases. All I know is that my friend has been kidnapped and the Paris police don’t seem the least bit inclined to do anything about it.”

His eyes hardening, Lebrun turned to Maret, “Put an APB out on Duncan MacLeod. If nothing else, we need him for questioning.”

His frustration getting the better of him, Methos sassed, “So kind of you, Inspector-”

“Adam!” Joe interrupted, his voice hoarse, his face haggard. “Thank you, Inspector.”

Methos had to hand it to the detective, the man wasn’t an emotionless automaton like so many of his colleagues. When his brown gaze settled on Dawson, all aggression left it. “You told my man that the victim was staying with you, monsieur.”

“That’s right,” Joe nodded.

“Perhaps you can solve the puzzle of his identity?” the detective asked.

It was an innocent enough question. The silence that followed it was anything but.

Just about the time Methos was getting ready to answer for Dawson, Joe sighed and said, “Ritch changed his name about a year or so ago. He never did say why.”

Methos breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Joe thought fast on his feet. That was the only answer any of them dared make. 

As with everything else on this horrible night, the complications arose sooner than later. Joe had barely finished speaking when the uniformed officer returned from his patrol car, an air of suppressed excitement surrounding him. He drew Lebrun aside and whispered something to him, after which Lebrun came back to where Methos and Ash were waiting beside the car where Dawson was sitting.

“We appear to have an even greater mystery on our hands here,” Lebrun announced. For all the sarcasm in his attitude, beneath it Methos could sense the Inspector’s genuine bewilderment. 

A single glance at his two companions told Methos that even the shell-shocked Ash knew what was coming.

Knowing that someone had to do it, Methos put on his best wide-eyed grad student face and innocently inquired, “What’s that?”

“The man who is lying dead over there, the man whom I recognize as Ritchie Ryan…” Lebrun started.

“Yes?” Methos prompted, praying that he could hold up the front. The only thing on his heart and mind at the moment was his missing lover. 

“According to public record, Ritchie Ryan was killed in a televised motorcycle race last spring,” Lebrun completed.

Joe, God bless him, was right on top of the situation. “That’s not possible. There hasta be some kind of mistake.”

“Obviously,” Lebrun testily affirmed. It was clear that his past dealings with MacLeod had left a bad taste in his mouth. “It is a strange coincidence that Monsieur Ryan’s name change occurred at exactly the same time the news reported him dead; is it not?”

“Look, none of this is relevant to what’s happening here. A man has been kidnapped…” Methos began.

“Perhaps,” Lebrun agreed. “If I have learned one thing in my dealings with Duncan MacLeod, it is that nothing is ever as it seems with this man.”

“So what are you saying?” Joe demanded. “That you’re not going to investigate his kidnapping?”

Methos was grateful for Joe’s gruff interjection. He was on the verge of shaking the Inspector or worse.

“Of course, I will investigate his abduction – if that is what happened,” Lebrun replied.

“I saw them roll him into a rug and push him into a car trunk!” Ash insisted, his emotionally fraught state reinforcing his claim.

“And you saw all this from…?” Lebrun skeptically inserted.

“The top of the ramp. I stopped there because there was some kind of electric discharge taking place down here. It looked like lightning. I thought it was fireworks, because I’d heard something like firecrackers just a minute or two before when I was still up on the street, but…it wasn’t any kind of fireworks I’ve ever seen,” Ash said. Obviously, the shock of witnessing his first Quickening had overwhelmed everything else in his reality. 

If Methos hadn’t known better, he would have sworn the Watcher was telling the complete truth.

“So you saw these weird lights and…” Lebrun led Ash through his story once again.

Ash sighed and picked up his tale for at least the tenth time tonight, “And in the flashing lights I saw these two men dragging Duncan MacLeod’s unconscious body towards a rug. I was so shocked that I-I just froze and watched them roll him up.”

“And you recognized MacLeod through the fog from over a hundred meters away?” Lebrun checked.

“I know Duncan MacLeod,” Ash said. “He has quite distinctive hair. I didn’t get a close look at his face, but the long hair and build of the person those two men rolled in the rug certainly matched MacLeod’s. And it happened right here in front of his home.”

“I see.” Lebrun nodded, then turned towards his subordinate. “Maret, has anyone informed Ms. Noel? If she was home at the time, she might have…”

“Inspector….” Methos interrupted, beginning to wish that a less capable stranger had been assigned to their case instead of this efficient acquaintance of MacLeod’s with the steel-trap memory.

“Yes?”

“I’m afraid Tessa Noel is dead,” Methos supplied.

“What?” the Inspector was genuinely shocked.

“She was killed in a mugging over five years ago,” Methos softly offered. 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Lebrun said after a silent moment. “It does seem that being Duncan MacLeod’s friend is a perilous proposition.”

“Are you suggestin’ that Mac had somethin’ to do with her death?” Dawson demanded from the backseat of the car, his patience obviously as frayed as Methos’ own.

Methos wanted to insist that Mac was in no way responsible for Tessa Noel’s death, but he’d read Dawson’s report on the incident. The fact that her death had nothing to do with the kidnapping that had brought her to that neighborhood in the first place was only incidental. Like so many of the mortals who became involved with their kind, Tessa Noel had been a hostage to fortune…which Duncan MacLeod might possibly be at this very moment, Methos recognized. Mac wasn’t the only one who had enemies gunning for him.

“No,” Lebrun answered Dawson’s question, “I am accusing Monsier MacLeod of nothing, only noting that people have a habit of dying around him with alarming frequency.” 

“Duncan MacLeod can hardly be blamed for a street crime,” Methos protested.

“No, of course he can’t,” Lebrun agreed, something in his attitude suggesting that the lack of blame was due more to a lack of evidence than any innocence on MacLeod’s part. The Inspector was far too sharp for Methos’ peace of mind. “As I am certain he will prove blameless in tonight’s events as well. With that thought in mind, can any of you good citizens think of a reason why anyone would want to kill your friend Ritchie Ryan or kidnap Duncan MacLeod?”

One by one, they shook their heads, even the over-taxed Ash giving a damn good impression of a mystified friend.

“Why is that not surprising?” Lebrun asked with a sardonic flair that rivaled Methos’ own.

Way too strung out tonight for anyone’s good, Methos immediately took issue with the Inspector’s perfectly understandable attitude, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Monsieur, I have been a detective for over eleven years now. In my admittedly limited experience, normal citizens do not find themselves abducted or involved in murder and criminal investigations on a regular basis. Shall I tell you how many times Duncan MacLeod has been interviewed by either the Paris police or our American counterparts in the past five years? Or mention how many of those cases were homicide investigations?”

“Men of conscience often find themselves propelled into such circumstances, Inspector,” Methos reminded, a very thin hold on his temper.

“Men of conscience do not usually number international jewel thieves among their closest friends. Interpol has twice followed a woman suspected in multi-million dollar jewel heists to this address. The last time the Paris police had truck with him, Duncan MacLeod turned that woman into us himself,” Lebrun shot back.

“How is the fact that he turned this woman in when he learned her history in any way incriminating?” Methos challenged.

“As a solitary incident, it isn’t,” Lebrun replied.

“Then what are we talking about?” Methos felt like his last nerve was about to snap.

“Twelve homicides, six manslaughters, and three assaults,” Lebrun countered.

Methos blinked, “Are you accusing Duncan MacLeod of all that?”

“No,” Lebrun replied with suspect sweetness, “merely quoting the contents of your friend’s file. Monsieur MacLeod has been either a suspect or witness in all of the above. It makes for interesting reading.”

“You’ve memorized Mac’s file?” Dawson entered the conversation.

“No, I merely pulled it when I heard the address of tonight’s homicide,” Lebrun answered. 

Methos held his tongue, beginning to understand where the Inspector’s hostility was coming from. The man was no fool. The old proverb about smoke and fire proved true more often than not. Methos knew that there were probably mafia dons who had smaller jackets than Mac’s. With the kind of lives Immortals led, it was little wonder they all weren’t spending their extended lives serving out prison sentences as serial killers. The Highlander was just a little more visible than most of their kind, because Duncan chose to live his life among mortals. They were damn lucky twelve homicides were all Mac had been questioned on. 

Lebrun’s sharp gaze turned on Jim Ash, “Monsieur Ash, I don’t suppose that you would be willing to accompany my men down to the station to go through our mug books for the men you saw kidnap MacLeod?”

From Lebrun’s expression, it was clear he did not expect agreement.

“Of course, Inspector,” the weary Watcher replied. “I’ll do anything I can to help.”

Masking his surprise, Lebrun said, “Thank you, sir. Maret, get Mr. Ash back to headquarters and see to it that he has a ride home.”

“Yes, sir,” the uniformed gendarme quickly replied, looking relieved to be leaving the crime scene, not that Methos could blame the man. Quickenings were never pretty. 

“Joe?” the Watcher hesitated, seeming to seek Dawson’s blessing.

“Go ahead, Jim. I’ll get someone to bring your bike over to you in the morning,” Joe said, giving the younger man’s back an encouraging pat.

“Thanks…and thanks for coming, Joe,” Ash said, straightening up to accompany the officer, finding strength from heaven only knew where. For the sake of the organization for which he’d worked so long, Methos was proud of the kid.

“I’m afraid I’ll need to take the car, monsieur,” Maret said to Joe.

“Right,” Joe answered, pulling himself gracefully out of the back seat of the open patrol car.

Lebrun startled Methos once again by offering, “My car’s over here, monsieur. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable for the time being? I’ve got to confer with my men.”

Methos could see in Joe’s eyes that he really wanted to deny the offer, nothing irritated his proud friend more than being treated like an invalid, but at the moment, Dawson was obviously hurting too much to be proud. He simply nodded his thanks and made his slow way with his odd gait through the swirling fog banks over to Lebrun’s vehicle. Methos followed behind, everything inside him aching – for MacLeod, for Joe, for poor Ryan…it was just too much to take in.

Paused beside the new police car, Methos looked on with a face of stone and a heavy heart as the forensic team finally finished with Ryan’s body. He made sure that he blocked Joe’s view of the event. Even a man with his experience found it hard to watch the ashen-faced technician lift Ryan’s head from the dock and place it in the body bag with the rest of the remains. Joe didn’t need to see that.

Hell, Methos didn’t need to see it himself. If he lived to be a million, he never, ever needed to see another headless body. And yet…there was a part of Methos that was hungry for the head of the man who’d done this. Ritchie Ryan might’ve been a twit, but he was definitely one of the good guys. He didn’t deserve to end up this way.

Someone was going to pay for this, Methos promised the howling madman inside him. No matter what it took, he was going to track down Duncan MacLeod, free his lover from his abductors and make this right…or, if not right, at least administer the kind of justice the king Methos had once been would have demanded.

Lebrun finally returned from his kibbutz with the forensics team. Methos moved aside to make room for the man, wincing as Joe’s gaze moved beyond him to where Ritchie was being transferred to a stretcher.

Silent tears streamed down Dawson’s weathered face as he watched as the young man who’d been his friend was loaded into the meat wagon. 

Methos bit down hard on his tongue, the savage inside him shrieking his fury. This should never have happened – not to Ryan, not to Mac, not to any of them.

The lanky Inspector paused beside the open police unit, looking in at Joe with troubled eyes. Obviously, Joe’s legitimate bereavement had penetrated the Inspector’s understandable suspicion. If Methos were a cop, he knew that Duncan MacLeod would be his number one suspect at this moment. It was only Ash’s troubling testimony standing between the detective and a neatly solved case. 

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I don’t believe there will be any more questions. May my men drop either of you home?” Lebrun enquired, making a visible effort at diplomacy.

Like Methos himself, Joe Dawson’s sickened gaze was focused on the stretcher. The doors closed on Ryan’s remains about the same time Lebrun asked his question. 

Methos snapped his attention away from the depressing sight. There was nothing more he could do for Ritchie. He had to concentrate on finding Duncan…and getting Joe through this intact. 

“No, I don’t need a ride. I, ah, I’ve been living here on the barge for the past five months now,” Methos softly informed. 

“You live with MacLeod?” Lebrun seemed stunned. Obviously, none of his subordinates had informed the Inspector of the fact that Methos had parroted off at least six times tonight.

Methos nodded, “Yes. I’ll see to it that my friend gets home all right, Inspector.”

“Since you live here, do you mind if I have a look around the barge before you go in?” Lebrun requested, a challenging light in his eyes. Methos could tell it was something he’d wanted to do all night, but without cause or permission, the detective didn’t have the right to enter the barge in his official capacity. 

It was clear from the atmosphere between them that both Methos and the Inspector understood that only someone with something to hide would refuse the request at this point. The friends and lovers of a truly innocent crime victim would have no reason to restrict the police’s access to their missing loved one’s domicile. But, of course, most innocent abductees weren’t storing enough swords under their stairs to equip Napoleon’s army, either.

Methos debated the wisdom of allowing the unofficial search, then shrugged it off as irrelevant. If he wanted to, Lebrun could be back in an hour with a search warrant in hand. Perhaps if he were Redstoneative now, there would be less intervention by the authorities later. He definitely didn’t want Mac’s phone bugged. No one had made any noises along those lines yet, mostly because Lebrun wasn’t convinced that MacLeod had truly been abducted, Methos suspected. The Inspector was professional enough to give them the benefit of the doubt and put out an APB on Mac, but not quite certain enough to call in the big guns yet. That suspicion could work in their favor. Methos just had to keep the man off balance.

Seeing no harm in it, Methos said, “Be my guest. Here’s the key.”

The detective took the key ring Methos fished out of his pocket, signaled the officer who was sitting in the front of Joe’s patrol car to follow him, and quickly strode to the gangplank. Methos breathed out a slow, resigned breath when he saw the small black case in the gendarme’s hand. His instincts were telling him that it wasn’t a forensics kit. Lebrun had known whom he was coming to investigate before he’d ever left the station. Considering the interest the Inspector had in MacLeod, Methos figured there was every possibility that the case contained some type of surveillance equipment. It was what he would have done in Lebrun’s shoes, if given the opportunity.

“Do you think that was a wise idea?” Dawson asked the moment they were alone.

Methos gave another dispirited shrug. “I doubt if there will be anything there to interest the Inspector. It’s better that we cooperate with the small stuff.”

Joe nodded, then stared bleakly off at the departing coroner’s wagon. The utility truck had already left the dock, leaving only Lebrun’s unit behind.

“Do you want me to take you home when he’s done?” Methos asked, though he hated the idea of being away from the phone that long. Even the time he’d spent dealing with the police had him chaffing at the bit. The person who had arranged this grisly, little surprise party was bound to call, sooner, probably, than later. Methos realized that he’d also have to give Maurice a call and ask him to keep an eye open for any messages that might be delivered there.

“No, I’ll wait with you…if you don’t mind,” Joe added.

Methos looked down at the man sitting in the back seat of the open police car. The lines were etched like roadmaps across Joe’s haggard features. This night had aged him ten years. Methos’ old friend looked lost…and old, too old, too fast. No one knew better than Methos the brevity of even the longest of mortal lives. Events like this did not add years to a man’s life.

“I’d be glad of the company,” Methos replied, meaning the words. He really didn’t want to face this alone. If Mac were…if the worst happened, Joe’s presence might be enough to keep the monster at bay. Hoping that they wouldn’t have to test that supposition, Methos reached out and gave his friend’s shoulder a brief squeeze.

“You think Mac’s still alive?” Dawson asked the question that had been shrieking through his own mind for the last hour.

“I haven’t felt him die,” Methos answered, trying to discuss it as dispassionately as he would a proposition in his philosophy courses.

“Would you?” Joe’s shock was clear. “I know MacLeod sometimes seemed to sense…”

“Not sense, _feel_ , Joe,” Methos corrected. “If you’re close to another Immortal, you can be halfway around the world and still have your legs go out from under you when someone takes their head.”

“For real?” Joe seemed astounded.

“Too real. I’ve felt it more times than I care to remember,” Methos admitted.

“And you always know who it is?” At Methos’ answering nod, Joe asked the question that naturally followed, “How?”

“It’s like…their face just snaps into your mind and you feel a sudden rip inside you…”

“Then why didn’t MacLeod feel Darius die? Or May Ling Shen?” Joe quizzed.

This being possibly the last subject he wanted to discuss tonight, Methos dealt with the topic as quickly as possible, “Mac hadn’t been close to May Ling for over a century.”

“And Darius? There wasn’t a day in the three hundred years Mac knew Darius that he wasn’t close to the man, no matter how many miles might separate them.”

“Darius was killed by mortals, Joe. There was no Quickening.”

It was too much to hope the Watcher would let the topic die. Joe persevered with, “How’s it different -- I mean, dead is dead, right?”

Methos sighed. “It’s different, Joe. Take my word for it.”

His eyes drifted to the barge, wondering what was keeping Lebrun so long. How much time did it take to bug a phone these days? Methos only hoped that the good Inspector wasn’t planting listening devices to monitor their conversations as well; though, that seemed a little extreme.

“How?” Joe’s question recalled him to the dock and their cheerful discussion of sensing the death of one’s Immortal friends.

He supposed he should try to answer Dawson’s questions, difficult though they might be.

Joe was struggling to understand. Methos could see that. He just didn’t know if he had the words to relay this. After five-thousand some odd years of experiencing it, he still didn’t fully comprehend the workings of the mystery.

“We’re…connected to each other in some strange way. You know how we always sense each other’s presence…it’s as though the power inside us calls out to each other,” Methos offered.

“That’s why you try to kill each other, because of the power calling out?”

Thinking that Lebrun was never going to emerge from the barge, Methos resignedly answered, “No. Some of us kill because it’s our nature to do so, the same as mortals. The rest…if someone comes for your head, you fight to keep it. Most of us are no different than mortals that way. Men like Sean Byrnes and Marcus Constantine, they can go for millennia without taking a head.”

“So why can’t more Immortals be like them?” Joe asked.

“Why can’t more men be like Victor Paulus. Given complete freedom from consequence, most men devolve to their most basic, selfish level,” Methos voiced the one certainty he’d learned to depend on in five-thousand years of living.

“Do you really believe that?” Dawson asked, sounding appalled.

Methos could only wonder at his friend’s naiveté. Dawson was as bad as MacLeod at times. They had stood here and watched the authorities cart off the remains of an innocent who’d died more child than man. How Joe could voice a question like that was beyond him.

Methos shrugged. “Let’s just say that I know it for a fact from personal experience.”

Joe seemed to get his meaning. “You could never be like that again, no matter what.”

“You’d better wait until we find whomever did this before making those kinds of statements, Joe,” Methos warned.

His face hardening at the reminder, Joe nodded and looked down. “You get this bastard, I don’t care what you do to him. I, ahh…guess that proves your point, huh?”

Methos hunched down until their eyes were level. “No, Joe. Those are the consequences of actions like this, and, I promise you, there will be consequences.”

Joe squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. After a moment, Dawson released a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry.”

“For?” Methos asked, laying his hand over Joe’s, which was clenched in a tight fist around the handle of his walking stick. The fog was whispering around them both like a special effect in a Hammar flick, leaving damp, ghostly kisses on their faces, hands and necks. 

“I know revenge isn’t your style anymore.”

Methos was quiet for a moment, trying to decide how best to word this. Finally, he just said, “I choose not to fight, that doesn’t mean I can’t. They brought this war to our door, Joe. I can’t ignore this.”

“I didn’t mean….”

“I know,” Methos assured as gently as he could, giving Joe’s hand another squeeze. He was always aware of the fragility of life, both mortal and Immortal, but never so much so as at moments like this, when he could see how little it would take for a mortal’s wounded spirit to slip away to the other side. “I promise you, Joe, I’ll get him back. No matter what it takes, I’ll get him back.”

“You really don’t think he’s dead, then?” Joe repeated, seeming to need the reassurance again. Dawson’s tormented gaze speared Methos, demanding absolute truth.

“If they’d meant to kill MacLeod, they’d have taken him the way they did Ritchie. Whatever this is, it isn’t just about murder,” Methos determined, trying to take as much comfort from the words as he gave.

“You, ah, don’t think it’s one of us – do you?” Joe asked, sounding like it took all his nerve to give voice to the words.

“One of us?” Methos echoed.

“Renegade Watchers. Like Horton,” Dawson explained.

Surprised, Methos considered the suggestion. It made sense. Mortals didn’t normally kill by beheading these days. The only ones Methos knew of who did were Watchers; men who were intimately aware of their prey’s weaknesses. But…that didn’t feel right, either.

“No, if it were Watchers, they would have killed MacLeod with Ritchie. There’s no reason for them to have taken Mac prisoner….”

“Igznay on the Watcher talk. Here comes the fuzz,” Joe warned.

Turning, Methos saw Lebrun coming down the gangplank.

“Did you find anything?” Joe asked once the detective was within hearing range.

“Nothing of importance to the investigation,” Lebrun responded.

Methos translated that easily enough. It wasn’t going to take a rocket scientist to suss out the fact that only one of the beds on the barge was being slept in on a regular basis. He braced himself, waiting for the inevitable deluge of personal questions that would normally follow such a development in a case, but although Lebrun gave him a searching look, there were no inquisitions into his private life.

“And what did you find to interest you outside of the investigation?” Methos was finally forced to ask, his nerves totally shot to hell.

Lebrun shrugged. 

“Monsieur MacLeod’s taste in art is as strange as ever. But that is neither here nor there. Should you hear anything, you will contact me immediately?” the Inspector asked, proffering his card.

Nodding, Methos took it and dutifully slipped it into his pocket. 

“You bugged the phone – didn’t you?” Methos asked when there were no further requests.

Appearing far too guilty for the professional he was, Lebrun shrugged at being caught, “I’m afraid it is standard procedure in a kidnapping case. If you should hear from the kidnappers, I must request that you do not do anything….impetuous. Agree to any demands that are made. We will take care of the rest.”

Once again Methos nodded. He’d been dealing with this kind of situation, from both sides of the fence, for longer than history had been recorded. Even as he was agreeing to the Inspector’s demand, Methos was plotting on where to leave his vehicle and estimating how long he would have before the police raided the barge were he to give his cellphone number and the one line message that MacLeod’s phone wasn’t secure when the kidnappers finally made contact. Doubtless, there would be an unmarked police car lingering somewhere nearby. He was going to have to ask Joe to create some kind of distraction on the deck while he went over the side….

“Would you like one of my men to stay on the barge with you tonight?” Lebrun offered.

“No, we’ll be fine,” Methos answered, wanting them gone so he could get to the phone.

“I took the liberty of playing your phone messages while inside. I’m sorry, there was nothing relating to the kidnapping,” Lebrun informed.

Wondering how much he was telegraphing, Methos made a conscious effort to blank his features and simply wait.

Lebrun just smiled at him. “I can see where you and Monsieur MacLeod must have much in common. I will be in contact with you again tomorrow morning, Monsieur Pierson. If Monsieur MacLeod should show up before that time….”

“I’m certain that the man you will have watching the barge will let you know right away, Inspector,” Methos trembled as he realized that he was falling into Death’s behavior patterns here. Adam Pierson didn’t butt heads with authority figures like this. He yessed them to death and then went off and quietly did whatever needed doing. It was his older self who needed to make this kind of childish grandstanding.

“I will see you in the morning, monsieur,” Lebrun ignored his comment.

Joe pulled himself out of the back seat of the detective’s car.

Methos reached out to stabilize his friend on the slippery cobblestones. Together they walked to the barge gangplank.

“Do you think it’s just the phone he bugged?” Dawson asked once they reached the deck. They were paused before the entryway, with the fog swirling around them like the smoke in one of Byron’s more dramatic rock star entrances.

“Probably,” Methos answered. “There’s no way of knowing for sure right now.”

“So we should keep the Immortal talk down to a whisper,” Joe said.

Methos nodded. “Before we go in, will you do me a favor, Joe?”

“Just name it,” Joe answered, his tear-streaked face seeming ready for anything.

“Would you call Longford’s Watcher and find out where he is and what he’s been up to this week?” Methos asked.

“You think he had something to do with this?” Dawson questioned, his face turning to stone.

Methos shrugged. “He’s the only one I can think of right now. I, ah, I’ve kept a pretty low profile the last hundred years or so. To the best of my knowledge, only two Immortals who have cause to want me dead know where I am right now – Longford and Cassandra. This is just not her style.”

“You’re sure of that – are you?” Joe challenged. “Cassandra had a major jones for your head the last time I met the lady.”

“She wants my head, but she wants to take it with her bare hands. She would never hire thugs like that. And she would never hurt MacLeod,” Methos insisted.

“How can you be so sure?” Joe questioned. “People change.”

“Not that much,” Methos answered.

“Oh?” Joe’s arched eyebrow accentuated the ironic tone.

Appreciating what Joe was silently suggesting, Methos ducked his head in surrender, “Point taken. However, I still don’t believe that Cassandra would ever kill an innocent like Ryan, and, no matter how much she hated me, she would never do anything to harm Duncan MacLeod.”

“Okay. You want I should give her Watcher a call, just to be on the safe side?” Dawson asked.

Methos waffled for a moment before giving in. He didn’t believe for a minute that Cassandra was involved in this. If it were just his life at stake, he’d be willing to let the matter ride, but seeing how it was Duncan who would pay the price for any mistake he made, Methos gave a reluctant nod. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give him a call as well.”

Joe nodded and walked to the prow of the barge to make his calls. Methos stood there shivering in the swirling mists, listening to the foghorns sound across the veiled river. Was there ever a more lonesome sound, he wondered. When he was cocooned safe in Mac’s arms, the eerie call of the foghorns never got to him, but on a night as dark and terrible as this, they made him feel like he were trapped in a Lovecraft story. God knew, the grisly scene that had awaited them on the dock tonight only reinforced that notion.

Five minutes later, Joe rejoined him. “Neither of them looks good for the doer. Cassandra’s been holed up in her cottage in Scotland for the last eight months.”

“And Longford?” Methos checked.

“Borden says he’s been in London all month. About the time Mac was abducted tonight, Longford was on his way to pick up another Immortal for a night on the town. When I reached Borden, he was in the same restaurant, watching Longford and his date enjoy their main course,” Joe informed.

Methos stared over the barge’s guardrail, watching the grayish fogbanks twist over the ink black Seine. Totally at a loss, he whispered, “I don’t know where else to start, then. They’re the only two who know where I am….”

“Why are you so sure this is about you? It’s not like Mac doesn’t have enemies of his own to spare,” Dawson reminded.

Weary to the bone, Methos turned back to his mortal friend. The pain in Dawson’s eyes making him patient where he might otherwise have savaged someone for voicing such a stupid comment, Methos toned down his irritation. Joe might have extensive experience at running a covert operation like the Watchers organization, but the politics of kidnapping were way out of Dawson’s league. Horton might have understood the theory, but Joe Dawson never would.

“If Ritchie, Amanda, you, or even myself were abducted, this would be about MacLeod. While it is possible that one of our kind would kidnap Mac just to torture him, it’s not likely. What happened here tonight has all the earmarks of a classic abduction.” At Joe’s cocked head, Methos elucidated, “Traditionally, when someone is kidnapped for extortion purposes, there is heavy collateral damage – to demonstrate what will happen to the hostage if the kidnappers’ demands are not met.”

“You’re saying that they beheaded Ritchie just to make a point?” Joe rasped.

Methos gave a grim nod. 

“And they took Mac because they want something from you?” Joe questioned.

“So I suspect,” Methos answered.

“You think they’re after your head?” Joe theorized.

“It seems the most plausible explanation,” Methos confirmed.

“But why bring Mac into it? Why not just bushwhack you the way they did poor Ritchie?” Joe asked.

“Whoever it is might want to make me suffer first. It’s been some time since I’ve had hostages to fortune like this. If an enemy had been observing me for a while, it’d be fairly obvious that MacLeod is important to me.”

“Important enough for you to give up your head?” the skepticism in Dawson’s voice should not have been surprising. In the last five years, Joe had seen him slip away from almost any confrontation that might cost him his head. Obviously, Joe’s blind spot extended to more than his assignment’s unimpeachable honor. Joe had apparently bought into Methos’ look-after-number-one-first rap, completely missing the fact that the only times he had endangered his life in the past few years, it was inevitably for Duncan MacLeod’s sake.

Methos lowered his eyes without answering, not knowing if the truth would even be believed.

“I’m sorry,” Joe said after a silent moment. “That was an incredibly thoughtless thing to say. I-I know you’ll do everything in your power to get Mac back.”

Uncertain if his head and everything in his power would be enough, Methos didn’t dare his friend’s eyes. Joe needed his faith; while Methos…he just needed MacLeod. 

Methos heard the sound of Dawson’s metal walking canes knocking together, then a moment later, Joe’s hand gave his shoulder a firm squeeze.

“It’s gonna be okay. We’ll get him back.” Joe promised and, illogical as it was, the Pollyannaish assurance made Methos feel better. After a moment, Dawson continued with, “Who knows? Even a five-thousand-year-old man can be wrong on occasion. This might have nothing to do with you.”

That brought Methos’ gaze back to his friend’s face. “Can you think of anyone who’s gunning for MacLeod at the moment?”

Joe gave a negative shake of his head, “Not off the top of my head, no, but it’s not like our boy doesn’t rack up enemies.”

“There’s that,” Methos agreed.

“C’mon, let’s go inside,” Joe said, taking his elbow as though he were the one needing support…which Methos supposed he was. Both of them knew that he wasn’t up to snuff right now. And, for Mac’s sake he had to be. This kind of game required nerves of steel.

Taking a deep breath, he unlocked the barge door. 

Lebrun had left the lights on inside. Stepping in, Methos thought that Mac must have left a window open someplace, for the barge felt as cold as it had been outside. Of course, heating a space this size was never easy, but tonight the place seemed chillier than normal.

Methos took both their coats and hung them at the door rack. He was reaching for the hidden sheath in his own before he recalled that his sword was still secreted away in his car trunk’s false bottom. There was no way in hell he could risk retrieving his weapon, not while Lebrun’s men were sniffing around the place. Fortunately, Mac was an equally cautious man. Methos had only to kneel down and remove the three floorboards closest to the door to the spare room to find the cache of weapons Mac had stored there. Three of the swords in the straw packed crate proved too short for him, but the fourth was a lovely gladius that fit his reach quite comfortably.

Joe stood beside the door, silently observing him.

“It’s not as good as my own, but it will do,” Methos decided. “We’re not going to have any more surprises tonight.”

“I think that one was St. Claude’s,” Dawson said so low that they’d have to be standing right over a listening device to be heard.

Methos nodded. It made sense. He and Xavier had been of the same build and height. He handed the blade to Joe’s safekeeping as he replaced the floorboards.

Methos had barely made that resolution about no surprises, when it was broken. Following Joe, Methos stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the entrance, staring down in disbelief from the wooden platform at the latest addition to the barge’s décor. Abruptly, he understood Inspector Lebrun’s comment about MacLeod’s taste in art. He actually gasped, the physical shock of seeing that particular piece of artwork here, at this time, filling him with a horrible sense of foreboding.

“What the hell is that?” Joe asked, staring askance at the new sculpture, which definitely required an acquired taste to appreciate.

The collapsed wooden crate and packing materials stacked neatly behind the Vernier piece told their own story. Obviously, this was Mac’s big surprise.

“It’s Adrian Vernier’s final masterpiece, _Rebirth_ ,” Methos whispered, barely able to get the words out.

“Is that supposed to mean something?” Joe demanded testily, regarding the sculpture like the eyesore it was. “What’s it doing here?”

With a concentrated effort, Methos pulled himself together, “I believe it’s my Valentine’s Day present.”

“MacLeod got you _that_? Why?”

“We saw it at an estate sale and it stopped me cold. I wasn’t expecting it there,” Methos explained, touched by Mac’s gesture, despite the pain the mere sight of the piece inspired.

“Who would?” Joe groused. 

“I’m going to go check the messages,” Methos said, hurrying to the phone, putting his back to Adrian’s work, trying to compose himself. Every time he thought he was getting a handle on things, something came up to destroy him again. What was important here was finding Mac. Everything else was incidental.

There were two previously played messages on the answering machine. The first was a telemarketer, the second was Ritchie Ryan telling Mac that he’d be at the barge at four.

“Hi, ya, Mac. It’s Ritch. Guees you’re not there right now. Just wanted you to know that I’ll be at the barge at four, like planned. Catch you later, man….”

“Christ,” Joe grated out when Ryan’s cheerful voice faded from the room, “it’s hard to believe he’s gone -- isn’t it?” 

Methos, who had spent the last five millennia trapped in that feeling, simply nodded. Between the dead child’s voice ringing in the air and the dead artist’s final work standing accusingly on the other side of the room, the barge felt like a mausoleum tonight.

“You think they’ll call here?” Joe asked.

“They’ll call,” Methos assured. “Sit down, Joe. I’ll get us something to drink.”

He was almost afraid to approach the bar, which was on the same side of the hearth as the sculpture.

It was strange, more than eighty years had passed, but he remembered every line and color variation in the metal arcs. If he were to lie on the floor beneath it, Methos was sure he could pick out the one whose discoloration suggested the shape of a clipper ship. He remembered focusing on that as orgasm wrenched through him-

His hand shaking, Methos slammed a steel door down on the memory. The last thing he needed while waiting to hear MacLeod’s fate was the memory of a dead lover drifting through his mind. For Duncan’s sake, he had to be clear and focused.

Returning to the living room proper, Methos gestured Joe over to the couch, gave the man his drink, set his own down on the coffee table, and turned to the hearth to get a fire going. He was glad of the task, for it temporarily focused his mind on something other than Mac. All too soon, there was a fire roaring.

That done, Methos crossed to Mac’s stereo. He loaded the CD player up with some Springstein, Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin, turned the volume up as far as his eardrums could stand, then returned to the couch. Carefully not looking at Adrien’s sculpture, Methos took a seat next to Dawson and turned to focus on Joe.

“Why’d you put that on?” Joe asked, gesturing towards the stereo, from which the Stone’s _Wild Horses_ was currently blasting.

Methos put his finger to his lips in a tacit request for silence, then did a quick check of the chess set on the coffee table, the antique clock and the lamps on the end tables. He couldn’t see anything suspicious on any of them, but it had been so long since Methos had played these kinds of games that he wasn’t sure he’d recognize a modern audio bug if it bit him.

“So that we can talk,” Methos answered in a low tone. “I don’t think that the barge is bugged, but if it is, that background noise might be enough to mask our conversation.”

Joe gave a glum nod and turned to watch the fire. 

For the longest time they simply sat there sipping their scotch, watching the flames crackle, willing the phone to ring so the horrible waiting would be over. Dawson looked done in, inches away from total collapse. Methos didn’t feel as though he were very far behind him.

Finally, Joe said, seeming just trying to make conversation, “You, ah, don’t seem too thrilled with your Valentine’s Day present. Is it just Mac missing or something more?”

“He, ah, must’ve paid a fortune for the piece,” Methos answered, trying to stay focused on the love that had motivated the gift and not all the emotional baggage that came along with it. 

“That’s not an answer,” Joe observed, his tone dull and almost dead.

Recognizing that his friend was grasping at straws to delay the grief Ritchie’s passing had caused, Methos shrugged. “Mac had no way of knowing it wasn’t a pleasant memory.”

“You knew this Vernier guy?” Dawson asked.

“Intimately,” Methos softly replied, bowing to the inevitable.

“You mean intimately like….”

Methos sighed and clarified, “I mean biblically.”

“Oh. Vernier…he was pretty famous, huh?” Joe surprised him by changing the focus of the question at that point, as though he knew that anything more personal would only hurt Methos.

Recognizing that it wasn’t normal, Watcher curiosity motivating the inquiry, but a need to fill the waiting with small talk, Methos gave Joe some of that truth he and Duncan were so fond of, “Almost famous. He probably would have been one of the most influential artists of this century, if it hadn’t been for me.”

“You’re not sayin’ you killed him?” Joe asked that question so low that Methos could barely hear it over the blaring music behind them. The inquiry itself should have been shocking, but Dawson had dealt with their kind long enough to know how frequently Immortals did take lives outside of the Game. Joe knew as well as he did that many Immortals killed those mortals unlucky enough to discover their true nature, rather than risk disclosure. Methos had never been among their number, but Joe couldn’t know that. It wasn’t like the oldest Immortal had had a true Watcher recently.

“Not literally, but…close as makes no difference. You want some more scotch?” Before Joe could answer, Methos was on his feet and at the bar. Rather than inflict another close encounter with Adrian’s metallic ghost, Methos brought the bottle back over with him and poured them both a generous helping.

“So, how do you kill someone figuratively?” Joe asked once they’d both had a bracing gulp of Mac’s liquor.

“You let your hormones do your thinking for you. You seduce someone whom you know to be emotionally incapable of handling an unconventional affair,” Methos explained as distantly as he could manage.

Apparently, he wasn’t quite as successful as he’d thought, were the compassion that flashed across Joe’s face anything to go by. “Was he a consenting adult?”

“He was that night,” Methos qualified, staring down into his scotch.

“Ah, I’ve had a coupla nights like that myself,” Joe sympathized. When Methos tentatively lifted his gaze to the Watcher’s face, Joe softly offered, “When I was in the Watchers’ Academy there was this woman…this _married_ woman. I knew she was big trouble from the second I laid eyes on her, but sometimes there’s just no arguing with the heart.” 

“Yes,” Methos gave a slow, thoughtful nod, “it was like that with Adrian. It was the same when I met Duncan. Both times, I knew I should turn and run, but…”

“There are no buts,” Joe firmly interrupted. “You might live forever, but you’re only human. Whatever went down, it wasn’t your fault.”

“How can you know that?” Methos demanded, testy and hurting.

“Because I know you. I saw you with Alexa. I’ve seen you with Mac. Whatever happened, you’re not a man who forces himself where he’s not wanted.”

The certainty in Joe Dawson’s gruff voice brought a lump to his throat. If he’d needed any proof of how far he’d come in three-thousand years, this was it. Joe’s words were a balm to his splintered spirit. Methos looked away, found his eyes settling on the glinting sculpture near the bar and pulled his gaze away again. 

“He coulda said no,” Joe insisted, sounding like he’d been Methos’ Watcher and an observer to the entire thing.

“No, Joe, he couldn’t have. He was drunk. I was drunk. The word _No_ wasn’t in the vocabulary that night.”

“I still don’t understand how that makes you responsible for his death,” Joe said.

“Adrian left Paris the next morning and wrapped himself around a tree in Versailles a month later.”

“Christ…I’m sorry,” Joe whispered, downing another slug of scotch. “That musta been horrible, but…it still wasn’t your fault.”

It was always his fault, the words were on the tip of his tongue. The second time civilization had fallen, it had been incontestably and entirely his fault, because he wasn’t able to think past his libido. _Artos, Michel Champlain, Charolette, Adrian Vernier, perhaps Duncan MacLeod…_ sometimes it seemed he destroyed everything he touched, for in his heart of hearts, Methos knew that whatever had befallen his lover tonight, it had to do with him.

“The fact that that piece of art is here tells me you didn’t mention any of this to Mac,” Joe said. “When we get him back…you need to tell him about this...all of this kinda stuff.”

“Why?” Methos whispered, wanting nothing more than to never think about this type of failure again. 

“So that he doesn’t go rippin’ your heart out like this every time he tries to do something nice for you. So that he can…comfort you.”

“You say that like it’s a possibility,” his sarcasm got the better of him.

But he was dealing with a master of the art here. Dawson speared him with those penetrating, blood-shot eyes and demanded, “You tellin’ me it’s not?”

Joe had seen him with Mac. The Watcher knew how much his assignment meant to Methos.

Methos’ gaze dropped as he gave a negative shake of his head. “No, you’re right. When we get him back, I’ll tell him anything he wants to know. You have my word on that.” 

Joe nodded, falling silent again.

All Methos could think about as he sat there waiting for the phone to ring was how many times during the past few weeks he’d turned away from Mac’s overtures, be they sexual or conversational. Methos hadn’t actually said no to his lover, but that was mostly because MacLeod had been so disturbed over what the idealistic Highlander had perceived as some kind of mind rape that Duncan hadn’t openly propositioned him. So, he’d brooded, pretending not to see Mac reaching for him…and now he’d give his sword arm to have those three wasted weeks back to live over.

After a quiet time, Dawson broke the silence and asked, “How do you think he’s doin’?

“What?”

“He was forced to take Ritchie’s Quickening. That can’t have been easy,” Joe’s voice betrayed his pain and fury.

“No, it never is,” Methos agreed.

“You…” Joe was compassionate enough not to complete the question.

Methos just reminded, “I’ve been alive for five-thousand years, Joe. There’s very little I haven’t lived through.”

“You been through this kinda scene before then?”

“Too many times.”

“I mightn’t be five-thousand years old, but I’ve been around the block a time or two. Seriously, how often does this work out okay?”

“That depends on what age the person who orchestrated this was reared,” Methos answered.

“Huh?”

“Historically, hostages often lived like kings for years in their captor’s courts,” Methos explained. “If it is a man of those times, Mac could be fine.”

“If it’s not?” Dawson pressed.

Methos stared into those red-ribboned eyes. He could almost touch the pain Joe was feeling over Ritchie’s passing. There was no way he was going to add to it. Dredging up every bit of acting talent he owned, Methos assured in his most earnest tone, “We’ll get him back, Joe.”

Dawson gave a grim nod, his expression making it plain that he knew he was being humored.

They fell silent again.

“God, I wish they’d call!” Joe said after three more CDs had run their course and Methos had added fresh logs to the fire.

“They will, eventually,” Methos said, not liking the delay himself. The longer it took for contact to occur, the more cool and professional the person they were dealing with. Amateurs jumped the gun. Professionals knew how to make their targets sweat.

Realizing how long a wait this could be, Methos softly said, “It might be a while, Joe. Why don’t you take a nap?” Reading the protest birthing in those rebellious eyes, Methos quickly extemporized, “I’m going to need someone with a clear mind to spell me in a few hours.”

“For real?” Joe checked.

“For real.”

“You’ll wake me the minute we get the call?” Dawson checked.

“Scout’s honor,” Methos swore.

“You were never a scout,” Joe pointed out.

“But Mac was. I’ll call you as soon as we hear anything. Promise.”

With a grudging nod, Joe acquiesced and asked, “You want I should take the guest room?”

“Tessa’s sculptures are all over the bed in there. Take Mac’s. The sheets were changed this morning,” Methos assured, not that there had been any action in the bed recently to require the almost daily changing of bedding that they’d been experiencing prior to Longford’s arrival. Seeing Joe’s hesitation, Methos added, “You’ll be able to hear the phone from there.”

“Okay,” Joe agreed, “do me a favor first, though.”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“Turn that noise off?” Dawson begged, Led Zeppelin’s _Whole Lotta Love_ obviously not to his liking.

“Consider it done,” Methos said.

“You’ll call me?” Joe checked one last time as he turned towards the big bed in the sleeping alcove.

“I’ll call,” Methos assured, watching as Dawson slowly retreated to the bedroom. The stoop to that proud man’s shoulders only added to the anger smoldering inside him. 

He kept his attention firmly fixed on the flames as Joe undressed and removed his prosthesis for bed. Then it was only Methos, the fire and the long wait, as it had been on many a night such as this. 

Methos watched the fire, melding with it until his fury and the flames were one. He’d played this game before. When the call came, he’d be ready…and so would Death.

********************


	7. Redemption's

_Redemption’s Price_

There came a time when you just had to cut your losses and go on with life. When you had your legs blasted out from under you before you reached twenty, that was a lesson you learned early. Joe Dawson knew he had more faith and optimism than any ten men put together, but there came a time when even the most positive of thinkers had to face the facts as they were and accept what could not be changed.

And what could not be changed was the fact that Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod, the Immortal he’d watched and idolized these past twenty-one years, the man who’d been one of his closest friends these past six years, was not coming back. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Joe was realist enough to face facts. Mac wasn’t coming back anymore than poor Ritchie was.

He was partially at fault for that. He was Mac’s Watcher. It had been his job to be standing on the bridge beside Ryan’s Watcher when MacLeod had been abducted. But he’d grown too damn complacent over the past five years. He’d known Mac’s schedule for the day – estate auction in the morning, an afternoon workout at the Paris dojo the Highlander frequented, back to the barge for a couple of hours, then dinner with Methos and him at six. Joe hadn’t seen any reason to be standing around an icy dock that afternoon when MacLeod would bring him up to date on any developments that night, so Dawson had taken care of his own business instead…and Mac had disappeared off the face of the Earth. If he’d just been there, he could have trailed the car in which Mac had been kidnapped. He wouldn’t have interfered with the Game himself, but if he’d known where MacLeod was taken, he could have told Methos and let Mac’s lover handle it, but…he’d shirked off on the job and Duncan MacLeod had paid for it. With his life, in all probability; although, Methos still insisted that Mac wasn’t dead.

Which brought Dawson to his latest dilemma – Methos. 

Dawson sat in his car, staring up at the barge through the pouring rain, almost afraid to go inside. MacLeod was lost, after more than eight months, Joe had no choice but to accept that. What was becoming clearer with each passing day was the fact that he was losing Methos as well. And he didn’t have a clue as to what he could do to halt the downward plunge.

Those first few awful days after Mac had been taken, Methos had seemed to be coping all right. Hell, Methos had been more than all right. The ancient Immortal had pulled himself together and shaken off the fugue that had clouded him since Longford’s challenge. It had been Joe himself who’d been the basket case then. He never would have made it through Ritchie’s funeral if Methos hadn’t been there by his side, holding him up, promising him that they would get Duncan back. That promise was the only thing that had gotten Joe through Ritchie’s burial. They’d get Mac back, and the bastard who’d caused all this would pay - it had become almost a mantra during those days.

But as the days turned into weeks, and still no call came, Methos had changed. The man who had been Joe’s emotional rock seemed to…not crumble, but just drift further and further away, into madness, Joe was beginning to suspect. 

The ancient Immortal wasn’t eating. What was even more alarming was that he wasn’t drinking, either, at least not alcohol. For the past month or so, the only liquid to pass Methos’ lips had been water. Methos seemed to have sworn off sleep until Mac’s return as well. Every waking hour that Methos had was dedicated to finding Duncan MacLeod. The only sleep he seemed to get were those fleeting minutes when Methos’ drained body would insist on rest and he’d drift off in the middle of a conversation. Joe was worried sick over it, and he had no idea how to affect a change. He’d thought Mac had been bad when he obsessed on something, but Methos could write a whole new volume on stubbornness.

At least Methos wasn’t risking life and limb combing the city anymore. Dawson didn’t think Methos could win a challenge with a three-year-old these days; the man was so exhausted. The two months Methos had been canvassing Paris and its environs inch by inch, stopping to investigate every Immortal signature he encountered, had been among the longest weeks of Dawson’s life. It had come to swords twice when Methos was poking around other Immortals’ territory, and both times Joe’s friend had been damn lucky to keep his head. Quitting that suicidal plan was the only argument Joe had won so far, and it was only the reminder that if Methos were to lose one of these inevitable, imbecilic challenges that there would be no one left to search for MacLeod that had convinced Methos to abandon the plan.

Though what Methos was doing now…

Shaking his head, Joe gathered together his walking sticks and the fragrant plastic bags containing dinner, opened the car door and braved the elements. So much for the perfect fall day they’d been predicting on this morning’s weather report. He couldn’t think of anything more dismal than a rainy Halloween. He supposed he should be grateful it was rain. Winter seemed to be setting in early this year. Another few degrees colder and this water would be snow.

The downpour hit him like a cold shower, drenching his head and clothes the second he pulled himself from his vehicle. An umbrella would have helped, of course, but there was no way he could handle his walking sticks, their dinner and an umbrella, so he sheltered the food bags as best as possible and made his slow way to the barge’s gangplank. Even if it hadn’t been so slippery, he wouldn’t have been moving much quicker. This cold dampness made his stumps ache like a son-of-a-bitch.

After a cursory knock on the barge’s door, Joe pushed his way in. He knew better than to wait for an invitation.

Shaking off the water, he put his bags down and removed his coat. A sweet scent in the air tickled his dripping nostrils as soon as he was inside. Incense. Yesterday the place had smelt like a church from the frankincense Methos was burning. This evening…Joe thought it might be sage.

Taking a deep, bracing breath, he started for the stairs. 

If Mac returned tomorrow, it was doubtful if he’d recognize his own home. The barge looked like the outcome of a violent struggle between a library and dungeon and dragons movie set. Piles of huge ancient tomes littered the entire place. The dusty old books were bad enough in themselves, but the occult paraphernalia scattered amongst them gave Dawson the creeps. Jars of herbs and less savory things lined the galley’s counter. They glistened under the light of the candelabras and dozens of votive lights. Those flickering candles and hearth fire were the only source of illumination in the cavernous barge. 

Which was probably just as well, considering the new décor. The enormous crystal ball in the center of the coffee table seemed to eat the light, rather than refract it. The Celtic ribbonwork on the wooden base that supported it would have been attractive under normal circumstances, but there was just something about that ponderous crystal above it that overwhelmed its beauty. Joe didn’t know what Methos was doing with the thing, but it felt…dangerous, which was utterly absurd. Joe knew it was only a hunk of stone.

The silver bowl that was half filled with water beside it had the same kind of haunting presence about it, as did many of the other strange objects Methos had scattered about MacLeod’s normally mundane abode. Joe couldn’t help but take inventory of the new additions, just to see if anything else had been added. 

He thought that the stack of little twigs of various bark shadings at the far end of the coffee table might be new, but the hide pouch with the small, round, mysterious petroglyph- decorated gray stones spilling out of it had definitely been here yesterday. The most unusual additions to the barge’s ensemble were an ancient, smoky mirror that was set up beside the hearth on a heavy-duty easel, a tiny harp with wire strings that were black as soot and a long cloak made of black feathers that was resting on the corner of the couch, as though recently discarded.

Joe didn’t know what the answer to finding Mac was – providing Mac were still alive to be found – but he sure as hell didn’t think it was this.

He didn’t see Methos at first glance. Joe hoped that he was finally getting some rest. Sighing at the desperation that had motivated his normally skeptical, academic friend to resort to all this occult crap, Joe started down the stairs. 

He was halfway to the dining room table when he noticed Methos sitting there. He almost jumped out of his skin at the shock of it. He’d been looking straight in that direction and not seen the Immortal, but Methos was sitting right there in plain sight, wearing a no longer white Henley and rumpled looking blue jeans. 

Joe paused, trying to figure out what his friend was doing. Methos was bent over the table with his left arm held straight out in front of him. Methos seemed to be dangling something at the end of a string over a piece of paper on the table. A few steps closer, and Joe was able to see that the paper on the table was a map and that a small pebble was tied to the end of the string. Joe saw that the pebble was swirling in a manner that appeared to be entirely unrelated to Methos’ hold on it, which seemed to be quite still. Joe watched the tiny white stone spiral, a chill that had nothing to do with his drenched state stealing over him as he recognized how completely unnatural the stone’s movement was.

The pebble lowered to the paper, finally touching down. When it did, Methos peered at the map for a long moment before releasing a disappointed sounding sigh.

“No luck, huh?” Joe asked.

Methos jerked straight up in his chair, his purple-bagged eyes staring over at Dawson as though Joe had just manifested on the spot. It was clear that the ancient Immortal had had no hint that Dawson had arrived, which was not good survival-wise.

“Joe,” Methos breathed, sinking back into his chair.

“What’s up with the cat toy?” Joe gestured towards the string dangling from Methos left hand. Methos’ right was busy at the moment massaging the no doubt strained muscle’s of his left arm’s biceps. God only knew how long he’d been holding that thing out like that.

Joe took heart from the fact that his head wasn’t instantly bitten off. There were days when he couldn’t say hello right.

“It’s called dowsing,” Methos answered, giving up on the arm rubbing and just slumping back in his chair with his head tilted over the back, staring up at the ceiling.

Without asking permission, Joe steadied his stance beside the book-crowded dining table and started to clear some space on the tabletop.

“So what’s it s’pposed ta do?” Dawson questioned, figuring it was best to keep his friend talking.

Apparently, he hadn’t hidden his feelings on the weird stuff Methos had been doing well enough. When Methos replied, he sounded almost his droll self, as if even he understood how bizarre this was. 

“Theoretically, the string is supposed to circle over the spot where the missing article is and lead me to it,” Methos informed.

“It didn’t work?” Joe tried for sincerity, but it was beyond him. All this stuff was scaring the hell out of him. Methos was the realist in their group. The ancient Immortal was always the first to perceive an unpleasant truth, always the one with the most prosaic, sometimes-ruthless arguments. To see this logical man driven by desperation into charlatanry hurt almost as much as losing Mac had.

Methos’ slumped shoulders shrugged. “Oh, it worked.”

“But?”

“I’ve combed that area five times this month, Joe. It’s nothing but warehouses and abandoned factories. Every time I try dowsing for him…it stops at the same place, but there’s nothing there,” Methos rubbed his hand through his shaggy hair, sending the uncombed locks into complete disarray. Joe supposed he was lucky his distracted friend remembered to shower a couple of times a week. Haircuts had apparently gone the way of sleep. Methos’ disheveled hair was down past his shoulders. Were he not so pasty and hollow-eyed, the longer hair might have been attractive, but given Methos’ run down condition, it only seemed to accentuate how thin his face had become.

Joe took a deep breath. Knowing the trouble he was buying into, he hesitated voicing his next words. He could see the poor guy in front of him was hanging onto his sanity by an even thinner string than the one Methos held in his hand. Methos was living in hope, focusing every bit of his energy on recovering Mac. Part of Joe said it was cruel to rip that last, pathetic hope away, but…friends didn’t keep their mouths shut when the people they cared about were eating their hearts out over a hopeless cause. “Did you ever think that maybe you were in the right place?”

“Joe, I told you. I’ve been there. I felt nothing…”

“Maybe there’s nothing to feel,” Joe gently countered. “If Mac is dead and buried--”

“He’s alive,” Methos insisted in the same inarguable tone he used whenever he made that same statement.

Normally, Joe let the discussion drop here. He wasn’t into kicking a man when he was down – and he had never seen any man this down, not even himself in those horrible months after Nam before he’d dedicated his life to being a Watcher. But…he couldn’t allow his friend to go on this way, either. One way or another, this had to stop, before Methos went totally off the deep end; though, looking at the paraphernalia around him, Joe couldn’t help but wonder how much further Methos had to go before he bottomed out. So, gathering his resolve around him, Joe pressed, “You told me yourself that an Immortal can’t feel a friend’s death unless it’s part of the Game. If mortals killed Mac--”

“He’s not dead,” Methos sounded more tired than hysterical, for all that there was a core of steel behind the assertion.

“How do you know that?” Joe demanded, beyond frustration with this implacable, illogical stand.

This was the place where Methos usually clammed up and refused to say another word, but the exhausted man in front of Joe didn’t seem to have the strength for such stonewalling. After a deep breath, Methos softly offered, “I know he’s not dead because I see him, every damn night.”

“See him…” Joe echoed, really scared now.

Those red-rimmed eyes that hadn’t seen sleep in God knew how many days locked with his own. Joe had seen a lot of pain in his years. The stuff Mac dealt with alone was often more than Dawson cared to contemplate, but the depth of raw agony in Methos’ eyes was terrifying. Just looking into it hurt Joe physically. He couldn’t imagine what it felt like to bear it.

“Yes, see him. He’s not dead. He’s…buried alive, I think.” Now that Methos had at last broached the topic, he didn’t seem able to stop, for he continued with, “He’s in a completely dark, enclosed space. He can’t see anything. He can’t move. He can barely breathe. He wakes up and he dies…revives and dies…over and over again, on an almost daily basis. For months, he was screaming my name…but now…he’s just quiet…”

The heavy book Joe was in the process of transferring to a nearby chair dropped from his hands to the floor, making a huge crash in the sudden silence. Joe’s stomach lurched within him at the horrible picture Methos’ words had painted. 

Mac buried somewhere, screaming in agony…it wasn’t an image he even wanted to contemplate. Better his friend were dead than that…and, it just couldn’t be true. Methos had really lost it.

This was far worse than Dawson had thought. This wasn’t encroaching madness. This was full-blown insanity…and Joe hadn’t a clue what he could do to help. Maybe if Sean Byrnes were still alive, Dawson might have violated what few portions of his Watchers’ Oath remained and approached the wise Immortal for help with Methos, but with Sean dead, Joe didn’t know whom to turn to. A mortal shrink would lock Methos away for the parts of the Immortal’s story that were true. This other stuff….

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” Methos said quietly, sounding totally lucid and sane for a raving lunatic.

“No, I…” Dawson stammered, trying to cover. The only thing he did know for sure was that it was best to keep Methos talking, no matter how wild the stuff he was saying was.

“Joe, don’t try to con a con artist. Do you think I don’t know how crazy it sounds? Why do you think I didn’t tell you for so long? It’s okay. You don’t have to believe me,” Methos sounded himself. Totally dispirited, but himself.

His basic honesty winning out, Joe found himself questioning subjects that his better sense was insisting that he veer clear of, “You tellin’ me that you’ve suddenly developed some kinda clairvoyance where MacLeod is concerned?”

Methos sighed. He gave a slow shake of his head, but held Dawson’s gaze as he answered, “Not suddenly developed. I suppose you’d call it…reclaimed. You’ve met people who have the sight. Joe, I know you’re not a superstitious man, but you’ve seen the scientific studies that support the existence of such…sensitivity.”

“Yeah, I guess I have. I just never saw anything to indicate that you had those kinda abilities,” Joe laid it on the line, praying that this man who had carried a sword for five millennia would not react violently to having his psychosis questioned.

To his shock and relief, Methos just calmly replied, “No, I don’t suppose you have.”

“So, you’d have to understand where this would be…a little hard to believe,” Joe continued, almost wishing that Methos were flipping out like most whackos did when their delusions were challenged. But the exhausted man in front of him was simply staring at him with something like compassion in his gaze, acting way too much like the totally rational Methos he had known for almost fifteen years now for Joe to stay frightened of him.

“Yes…I understand, Joe. Don’t worry about it.” Seeming more hurt than angry, Methos’ attention settled on the dinner bags Joe had settled on an empty chair. “Is that dinner I smell?”

Without another word on the previous subject, Methos preceded to clear his map away and make room across from him for Joe to sit. 

“I’m going to owe you a fortune by the time all this is over,” Methos commented, sounding so matter-of-fact about the all over, finding MacLeod bit that Joe almost believed it himself. “You’ve been feeding me for eight months now. Hold on, I’ll get some plates.”

Joe watched his seemingly rational companion cross to the nearby galley and quickly take the dinner plates and cutlery Dawson had left in the draining board after he’d washed them last night back to the table.

“What did Maurice make for us tonight?” Methos questioned.

Joe could tell from Methos’ expression that his friend wasn’t really hungry, but was feigning interest to humor him. And once again, it was right there in Joe’s face that Methos was acting too normal for a legitimately crazy person, which led Joe to wonder how sane Methos had been before all this began. After all, how sane could anyone be who had led the kind of life this man had and seen so much loss?

“Lamb stew,” Dawson answered, quickly opening up his sacks and sorting out their meals before Methos’ attention jumped back to his obsessive search. His friend needed food and rest more than anything right now. Joe knew he was being patronized, but if it got some nourishment into his grief-stricken friend, he was willing to put up with it. Who knew, maybe some solid food would ground Methos.

He surreptitiously watched as the ancient Immortal forced himself to choke down half a plate of the thick soup. When it became clear that Methos was just playing with his meal now instead of eating it, Joe casually revived their former conversation. “You always struck me as a rational, scientific man. How can someone who claims to have studied with Socrates waste his time with this kinda mumbo-jumbo?”

Methos slowly raised his gaze from the potato he was dismantling with a fork. Something almost…sagacious entered his expression as he softly answered, “I am a scientific man, Joe. There was a time when what I’m doing here _was_ a science…and I excelled at it.”

Seeing how calm Methos was, Joe poked at the basic logic faults in his response by carefully asking, “So why’d ya give it up if it worked so good?”

“For the same reason men like Jim Coltec had to abandon their belief systems. Christianity was conquering the world. Those who wouldn’t or couldn’t convert died horrible deaths and…I wanted to live. I saw the way the world was going and did what I’ve always done to survive – changed with the times. That didn’t invalidate any of my former knowledge. It was just easier to go with the flow and embrace science. The two approaches aren’t contradictory, no matter what you might think.”

“So if it usta work for you, why can’t you get it to now?” Joe questioned, trying to get his deluded friend to see sense. Methos was smart enough to know that it didn’t work because it was all chicanery.

Once again, there was no censure for his obvious doubt, though the resigned cast that came over Methos’ thin features almost made Joe think he’d voiced the disparaging thought aloud.

“It’s hard to explain. I was never…a true adept. My…teacher always complained that I had a great deal of natural talent, but no true discipline. And I need that discipline now, Joe. Most of what I’m doing requires a level of constant practice that most schedules don’t allow. The mystery grows in silence, and modern life just doesn’t have a lot of that. Also, an intensely close relationship with the natural world around you is a prerequisite to most of what I’m doing and I simply do not have that level of familiarity anymore.”

“What do you mean by familiarity? You’ve lived in Paris on and off for centuries. Who could be more familiar with this city than you?” Dawson asked, intrigued in spite of himself. Methos wasn’t babbling like some half-cracked psychic trying to sell their wares to the credulous. The explanation had a twisted kind of sense to it.

“It’s not that kind of familiarity. There are…” Methos seemed to search for the correct words before continuing with, “…energies that flow through the natural world that these arts tap into--”

“We talkin’ spirits here?” Joe interjected, trying not to mock out of hand.

Methos’ weary sigh told him how totally he’d failed, “To some degree, but beyond the mystical, there are physical energies that flow in set patterns through this planet. Most holy ground is situated above these natural power sources…”

“Which is why Immortals can’t kill on it?” Joe asked, worried that what Methos was saying was beginning to make true sense. He knew the gaes against killing on holy ground. It had never made sense to him why an Immortal could safely take a head in one site, but should he move one inch onto sacred ground and commit that same act, all hell would break loose. Wasn’t that true magic at work, Dawson wondered, not liking the direction his thoughts were taking.

Every now and then Joe had to give himself a mental shake and remind himself of the facts of this weird life he led. He was here speaking to a five thousand year old man, the oldest Immortal. Methos’ very nature would seem magical to most people. In the thousands of years there had been Watchers, not one of them had ever witnessed an Immortal birth. These beings just appeared fully formed as if spat out from fairyland. They lived only so long as they kept their heads attached to their shoulders, and when they were beheaded, the energy that was released was fully capable of killing a mortal if that person were unfortunate enough to get in the way of the Quickening. By any normal human standards, Methos’ biology was the stuff of fantasy.

For the first time in way too many months, Joe began to doubt his own stand on this. Who was he to question Methos? This man had lived longer and forgotten more about history and the nature of the universe than science understood today. Joe thought his friend was going crazy, but if he told any of his non-Watcher friends about Methos’ Immortality, they’d think him just as cracked. So, maybe he needed to cut his friend a little slack and at least attempt to support him. God knew, Joe had rarely seen a man more in need of solace.

“Yes. The Quickening causes a temporary short in those energy lines that, as we know from Vesuvius, can be quite catastrophic,” Methos answered his question about Immortals killing on holy ground.

“I still don’t get why you can’t tap into these energies anymore,” Joe admitted after a brief, uncomfortable silence.

Something in his approach must have changed because the wariness left Methos’ tired features almost entirely. Seeming a little shy, Methos offered, “It’s like…turning your back on a friend. The longer the estrangement lasts, the harder it is to reestablish contact. When Myrddid was killed, I packed all this stuff up and…forgot everything he ever tried to teach me. Now, that I have a need, I’m turning to it again and…”

“And…” Joe encouraged, uneasy. Methos was too much his usual self right now to blow off everything he was saying. Joe knew truth when he heard it, and Methos seriously believed every word he was saying.

“As ever, the fault is not in the system, but in the practitioner. I am too desperate to focus most of the time and…”

“Yes?” this time, there was no judgment in Dawson’s tone. He just wanted to hear the rest.

“I’m too…skeptical. I’ve dealt with the hard sciences too long. You get immediate, clear-cut results there, and so much of these arts are…open to interpretation. I get fragments instead of the whole picture, riddles instead of answers and…I just don’t have the time to unravel it all. Every minute I sit here trying to figure these arcane messages out, Duncan is lying somewhere dying of thirst and hunger…”

Joe dropped his spoon to his bowl and reached across the table to grip Methos’ forearm. He didn’t know what to say that could possibly help, but he couldn’t let Methos torment himself this way. “You’re not to blame for this. You’re doing everything you can to help him.”

“It’s…not enough, Joe. It’s never enough,” Methos’ rasped out, his bloodshot eyes swimming with liquid.

Joe felt his own fill in sympathy. Losing Mac had hurt him more than anything he could remember, including the loss of his legs, but it had totally destroyed Methos. This Immortal, who had survived all that history could throw at him, was crumbling before Joe’s eyes – because of a broken heart. Joe gave the muscular forearm a squeeze and softly corrected, “It was enough for Duncan MacLeod and will be again when we find him.”

“You think he’s dead,” Methos reminded.

“I’ve been wrong before,” Joe said. “Come on. Eat some more. When you’re done, we’ll take a drive out to wherever your pebble told you we should go and have a look around.”

Hearing his own words, he couldn’t help but think, welcome to insanity.

“You’ll come with me?” Rarely had he seen Methos so shocked. There was a very young and childlike quality to the exhausted Immortal’s surprise, as though it had never occurred to Methos that he had the right to ask for back up. 

“Yeah, I’ll come. If you chow down,” he qualified, seeing the means of getting some more food into his way too slender companion. Joe still thought this kind of search a useless effort, but…he wasn’t doing it for Mac.

“Thank you, Joseph,” Methos said with embarrassing gratitude and took another spoonful of stew. 

“Nothin’ to thank me for,” Joe shrugged.

His own dinner finished, Joe stared around the candlelit barge. Most of the stuff Methos had brought in was self-explanatory, but a few of the new additions still puzzled him.

“What’s with the feathered robe?” Dawson asked.

“Myrddid used to wear it when he was…working. He said it helped him focus,” Methos explained.

“It do anything for you?”

The wry lift of Methos’ left eyebrow was totally his old friend. “It made me perspire.”

“Shouldn’t those feathers have rotted by now?” Joe questioned once he realized how old that garment must be.

“The one thing I’ve learned to do well in my life is preserve for posterity. Besides,” and here something like uneasiness entered Methos’ attitude, “Myrddid’s belongings don’t seem to be aging at the same rate most of my other stuff is.”

“What do you mean they’re not aging?” Joe asked, a shiver running through him. He really didn’t need to hear this on Halloween night.

“Even my best preserved pieces show their age. Wood gets brittle. The moisture in feathers and fabrics make them rot over the ages, but…these were perfect when I opened them up. It was like time had stopped for them. I swear I could still smell Myrddid in the robe,” Methos quietly offered, his expression seeming to say that he didn’t have much hope of being believed.

Joe swallowed his instinctive ‘That’s not possible.’ That was a given. Right now, he was working at comforting. Sanity could come later.

When he made no reply, Methos offered, “And the harp was in tune.”

“Now I know you’re pullin’ my chain,” Joe said, unable to keep quiet at that. He was a musician. He mightn’t know diddly about the lifespan of feathers, but the one thing he knew more about than Duncan MacLeod was stringed instruments. “Harps don’t stay in tune for more than twenty minutes under the best of circumstances. I used to date a harpist. Retuning was the bane of her existence.”

Methos gave a shrug. “It was and still is in tune. The only thing I couldn’t find among my…teacher’s possessions was Myrddid’s tuning key.”

Joe pulled himself out of his seat and cautiously approached the tiny harp that was resting on the end of the couch. Switching both walking sticks to his left hand, he cautiously ran his right index finger down the twenty-four harp strings. They rang with bell-like clarity in perfect scales.

More weirded out than he cared to admit, Joe snatched his hand back as though burnt.

Turning his back to the ancient instrument, he retreated to the table. “What’s it doin’ here, anyway? The other occult stuff, I understand, but a harp…?”

Methos finished chewing the food in his mouth, swallowed, then said in a perfectly reasonable tone, “That harp is the most dangerous thing in the barge right now…and I’m including the swords and my revolver in that estimation.”

“Dangerous…” Joe shook his head. “What’re you gonna do with it – play an enemy to sleep?”

Methos was quiet for a long moment before answering. “Joe, I know you’re not going to believe this, but I’ve seen that harp turn the tide of battle. I’ve seen it call up thunderstorms on a perfectly sunny day.”

Ridiculous as the claims were, Joe didn’t even try to refute them. He could see Methos fully believed what he was saying, and, who knew what Methos had seen? If this harp had belonged to Merlin the magician, anything was possible. A man didn’t become that kind of legend without something to stoke the myths. A good military strategist or someone who’d watched the weather patterns in an area as long as an Immortal could would have more than sufficient abilities to hoodwink the masses. Methos was a prosaic cynic nowadays, but there was no telling what he’d been like a couple of thousand years ago. Disbelievers didn’t usually hang with mystics, much less claim them as their teachers, anymore than gurus suffered cynics. Whatever Merlin had been, it was clear that Methos had bought into the man’s rap hook, line and sinker.

But that Methos was as dead as Merlin. Joe couldn’t accept that the Methos he knew today would still believe that a few pieces of wood and metal strings could have the kind of magical powers he was suggesting. “And you think it still can do that?” 

“Oh, it can still do it, in the hands of the right man,” Methos answered, irony heavy in his cultured voice.

“Come on, Methos. Work with me here. I’m tryin’ta take you serious, but how can you expect me to accept that a musical instrument can….”

“It’s not a musical instrument. It’s a…” Methos seemed to search for a word for almost a full minute before he tagged on a dissatisfied sounding, “…Druid’s harp.”

“You’re gonna tell me how that makes a difference, right?” Joe demanded with a forced smile. 

“Myrddid played this harp for close to a thousand years, Joe. All the rest of the stuff here were the tools and trappings of his trade, but the harp…it was the focus of his power. He could kill or heal with a song; call the rains or winds to do his bidding; bind a man’s will, soul or heart to him or another…some of the greatest…” Again Methos paused as if to search his vocabulary before settling on another inefficient definition, “…spells this world has seen were worked through this harp, and the harp remembers.”

“The harp remembers,” Joe repeated, not even trying to mask his cynicism.

“It was used to transmute will into reality. It is sensitive, receptive and…eager to be of use again.”

“Are you listening to yourself?” Joe questioned.

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me,” Methos reminded. 

“How can I? This is like a fairytale….”

“And where do you think they came from, Joe? This harp is no child’s tale. It is a dangerous weapon and a force to be reckoned with in its own right,” Methos countered. “I hadn’t the nerve to touch the strings until this morning and…”

“And?” Joe pressed.

“Look outside. You walked in through the results. Your pants are still dripping, even as we speak,” the truly terrifying part was that Methos was not joking.

“You’re seriously tellin’ me that you think you’re responsible for the _weather_?” Joe needed to hear it to believe it.

Methos gave another of those unenthusiastic shrugs and answered, “It seemed a harmless enough experiment.”

“How can you believe something like that? This is the twentieth century, not the dark ages!” And yet, even as he spoke, Joe remembered this morning’s predictions for a perfectly clear day.

“The world isn’t that different now. Take my word for it.”

“I can’t. You want me to believe, you’re gonna have to prove it to me and if you can’t prove it, I want you to promise me that you’ll put all this stuff back from wherever the hell you got it and we’ll try something else. Together,” Joe added that last because he sure as hell wasn’t leaving his friend to devolve into anything crazier than this. He knew he’d been lucky here. There had been religions in the past that had required blood sacrifices for this kind of thing.

“This isn’t a game, Joe. I can’t do parlor tricks on demand,” Methos wearily refused.

“I’m not asking you for any tricks,” Joe responded. “Just somethin’ to convince me that it isn’t time to call the guys with the butterfly nets and the padded rooms, ‘cause to tell you the truth, my friend, you are scarin’ the hell outta me here.”

Methos’ eyes narrowed to slits, no small feat considering how puffy they were. “Put up or shut up, hmmm?”

“If you want to put it that way.” Seeing neither protest nor assent in those unreadable, haggard features, Joe began to relax. Perhaps this lunacy would end now. One glance at the rain gushing over the nearest porthole was enough to make it clear that the storm had no intention of passing anytime soon.

To his consternation, Methos released a deep breath and nodded. “All right. I’ll prove it, but, remember, you asked for it.”

With growing apprehension, Joe watched the ancient Immortal rise from his chair. Methos sidetracked to the kitchen to wash his hands with soap and water…something that he hadn’t done to his clothes in some time from the looks of them. Then Methos walked over to the couch, sat down and picked the small, dark wood harp up from its corner. He rested it against his chest and positioned his fingers on the strings. For a minute Methos simply held the harp in place, sitting there with his eyes closed so long that Dawson began to think that he’d fallen asleep again. Despite the closed eyes, Methos’ expression was anything but tranquil. There was a tension there that was completely inexplicable.

Joe was puzzled. He’d known this man long enough to recognize fear in Methos when he saw it and that was what he was reading beneath his friend’s outer control. A few deep breaths and Methos seemed to make a conscious effort to shake off the emotion. Without opening his eyes, his long, sinuous fingers began to fly over the strings.

The sounds that emerged were…enchanting. Joe Dawson could find no other words for it. He was a musician. He knew good music when he heard it, but this was something more. The song was as simple as the instrument it was played upon. The tune wasn’t more than a dozen notes, repeated over and over again in the same haunting refrain. It should have been dull and repetitive. If Joe had played it on his guitar, the piece would have just laid there, but every time Methos played it, the reverberations seemed to deepen, the song growing in power and volume – which was blatantly impossible on an instrument that simple. There were no sharping levers on this harp, no amps. Sitting fifteen feet away as he was, Joe shouldn’t have been able to hear Methos’ song as anything more than soft background music. But the tones of that nondescript instrument filled the cavernous barge like a symphony orchestra would have, growing in power. The bass strings seemed to vibrate through Dawson’s very bones as Methos plucked them, while the high strings…they shivered through him like a fever, making his blood dance and his heart pound as though he were on the verge of orgasm. 

The music was exhilarating and terrifying all at once. Listening to it, Joe had a visceral understanding of Methos’ earlier fear. He didn’t know what the hell was going on here, but Methos was right. This wasn’t about entertainment or music. The very air seemed to be vibrating with energy, the way it would before the lightning bolts of a Quickening took an Immortal.

Methos’ fingers flew in an almost blinding blur. He played that same song for over fifteen minutes straight, and, even though Joe wanted to tell him to stop whatever he was doing, he couldn’t get his vocal chords to work. He was as frozen in place as if the music had turned him to stone, so focused was he on its bewitching tones.

Without altering the notes, the energy raised by the eerie tune seemed to reach some type of crescendo. Dawson heard a boom outside that sounded like thunder, followed by a blinding lightning flash on the other side of the portholes and then…absolute silence as the harp stopped playing.

All Joe could hear was the wild racing of his heart and the harsh sounds of their breathing.

He looked over at Methos. His friend looked limp and drained. His gaze kept moving to the nearest porthole…no rain, no lightning. Even from his seat Joe could see a stunning sunset turning the retreating clouds to a brilliant blend of purple, orange and pink.

His blood seemed to solidify in his veins as his sluggish mind apprehended what those rapidly moving cloudbanks meant. Everything inside Dawson wanted to refute the conclusion he was drawing, but his honesty wouldn’t let him. A cold sweat broke out all over him as he struggled with this new version of reality, a reality where thunderstorms could be invoked and dispersed with a harp song…and a man killed or healed by the will of the person plucking those strings. It was a similar crisis to the one he’d undergone in Nam thirty-some-odd years ago when Ian Bancroft had first told him about Immortals, a situation where everything he’d ever learned insisted that what he was being told couldn’t possibly be true, except he had seen it with his own eyes – there in Nam when Andy Cord rose up from the dead and carried him eighteen miles to a MASH unit and now when another man he’d known just as well changed the weather to suit his mood. In truth, one was no stranger an occurrence than the other. It was what it said about the world as Dawson knew it that was hard to handle.

“Proof enough?” Methos asked into that thrumming silence.

“Christ…” was all Joe could manage as he gaped at Methos. In his scruffy jeans, stained white shirt and shaggy hair, the ancient Immortal looked like a kid at one of those RenFaire Festivals as he sat there cradling that tiny harp to his chest…a kid who’d just changed the weather….

“Easy,” Methos was at his side in an instant, steadying Joe as the room reeled around him.

Without a word, Dawson sagged into the chair Methos thrust under him. Feeling totally out of it, he just stared up at the lines of exhaustion that were etched in Methos’ angular face as his friend bent over him to matter-of-factly take his pulse. 

“You’re okay,” Methos breathed out a relieved sigh. “I think it’s just shock…and exhaustion. When was the last time you slept, Joe?”

“More recently than the last time you did,” Joe rallied, dragging his wrist back from Methos’ hand. “I’m all right, okay? Stop fussing.”

Still crouching so that their eyes were level, Methos retreated a few steps and rested his butt on the corner of the coffee table – the only unoccupied space on it at the moment. The move was graceful as a cat’s. Methos never even checked the space before trusting his weight to it, Joe noted. 

Dawson stared at the man before him, feeling as though he were seeing him for the very first time, which in a way, he was. There was an unsettling sense of déjà vu to the scene. Methos was wearing that same uncertain expression he’d sported the first time he’d come to see Joe three months after Kronos died at Bordeaux, like Methos wasn’t sure of his welcome and was expecting the worst.

“I’m sorry,” Methos said after a quiet moment in which they simply appraised each other.

“What for?” Joe asked, trying for cool. He was shaken, more shaken than he should be. Even as he tried to process and deal with what he’d just witnessed, there was a part of him wondering where it ended. He’d been interacting with Immortals for so long that the sheer magic of their existence had become muted in his mind. Joe had come to view them as a different breed of humans, the rules that governed their existence strange, but as clearly defined as those of his own. But what he’d just seen…his drinking buddy had just tampered with the weather. Even the expanded reality of a Watcher wasn’t sophisticated enough to handle that in stride. The rules of the universe as he knew it were forever changed again. If Methos could manifest a storm and disperse it with a song, could he do all that other stuff wizards were reputed to do as well? Methos had already stated that what he did could heal or kill. Joe couldn’t help but wonder what else was possible. Was every piece of fiction going to turn out to be fact?

“Losing my patience. I shouldn’t have done that,” Methos said, his bloodshot gaze moving almost nervously to the nearest porthole as though he, too, were freaked out by what he’d just wrought.

“Why not? If you can--”

Quite out of character, Methos cut him off, “There is much I can do, Joe. That doesn’t mean I should.”

“Huh? This is incredible. Why wouldn’t you wanta…if you can do something like that, how could you just walk away from it? I don’t get it. Most people would give their right arm to be ableta--”

“Able to – what? Change the world to suit one’s whimsy? Force one’s will upon those too weak to defend themselves? I’ve been there and done that, Joe. I know how I respond to absolute power,” Methos reminded.

“Then why’d ya learn in the first place if you didn’t want to use that kinda power?” Joe asked, just not getting this.

“Why did Duncan follow Darius’ teachings? Someone older and far wiser was trying to make the world a better place.”

“So what changed that?” Dawson asked, still confused.

“Darius’ sword at the gates of Paris,” Methos replied, the blanking of his features telling Joe how much that loss still hurt his friend. His confusion must have been obvious for Methos continued in a softer tone, “I didn’t have his wisdom, Joe. If I’d continued along this path without his goodness to guide me, the results would have been catastrophic.”

“But you’re using his teachings now to find Mac?” Joe questioned.

“As much as I dare.”

“If you can call up a rainstorm…couldn’t you just call Mac back to you the same way?” Joe suggested. He wasn’t sure how this magic stuff worked, but it seemed the most obvious approach. It certainly beat the cat toy Methos was playing with when he’d walked in tonight.

“I considered that,” Methos answered. His gaze moved to the harp that was now resting safely in the corner of the couch and skittered quickly away again. If Joe didn’t know better, he’d swear that Methos was uncomfortable having the harp in the same room with him.

“So, why don’t you--”

“Because I’m not sure what I’d call to me, Joe,” Methos snapped. Standing suddenly, Methos moved to the galley. Joe watched as his friend stopped at the sink for a tall glass of tap water, which he instantly drank down.

“What do you mean you don’t know what you’d call to you?” Joe asked, trying to keep his imagination in check.

“Fast fixes are dangerous, Joe. I’ve seen what happens when desperation overrules common sense.”

“What are you talking about? If you can get MacLeod back….”

Methos sighed. “When I was studying with Myrddid, he had another apprentice. His name was Averlin. Averlin had grown up with one of the king’s champions, a warrior named Gareth. Even though they followed totally different paths, Gareth and Averlin maintained their friendship, despite the problems it caused them both at court. Gareth fell in battle one day, but his body wasn’t recovered after the fray. Averlin was…he was broken by the loss, Joe. He couldn’t accept that Gareth was dead and would never return --” Methos broke off and gave a humorless laugh, “Sounds familiar – doesn’t it? At any rate, the weeks passed and Gareth never came home. Finally, unable to bear the loss a second longer, Averlin took his harp, violated Myrddid’s direct command and did precisely what you suggested - he called Gareth back to him.”

Joe knew there had to be more to this. “So what went wrong? Didn’t Gareth return?”

“Oh, he returned all right. At dawn the next morning Gareth showed up at the castle gate. He was glowing with good health and humor, joking about how he’d gotten lost in the woods for nearly a month. He’d never looked better. The entire court was ecstatic, with three notable exceptions.”

“Those were?” Joe asked.

“Myrddid, myself, and Averlin.”

“But…why?”

“At first I thought Myrddid angry because Averlin violated his orders,” Methos said. “Once Gareth came back, our master met with him once, then took to his chambers and avoided everyone.”

“And why were you unhappy?” Joe questioned.

“Gareth was mortal when he rode out to battle on that fatal day, but the Gareth that returned at Averlin’s bidding…I could sense him, Joe. Not the same way I would another Immortal or even a latent Immortal, but there was something in his presence that…wasn’t right,” Methos explained.

“How is that possible?” Joe asked.

Methos shrugged. “I didn’t know. All I knew was he wasn’t the same Gareth whom I used to go drinking with. Something was subtlely off. The man who returned to us laughed with Gareth’s laugh, had all of Gareth’s mannerisms, but there was still something alien about him. Averlin felt that difference far more acutely than ever I did. He avoided his old friend like the plague…and Gareth never made any attempts to lessen the distance. Averlin stopped his studies with Myrddid soon after Gareth’s return.”

“Did you ever find out what changed Gareth?”

“When he eventually emerged from his tower, I asked Myrddid why I found Gareth so different since his return,” Methos’ smile was soft and strangely exacerbated. “Myrddid would have done Socrates proud. All he said was, ‘You find Gareth different because the soul who sups with us is not Gareth.’”

“That was all he said?” Joe questioned.

Methos gave a slow nod. “My next question was, of course, where Gareth was, if this wasn’t him. To which Myrddid replied, ‘Dead in his grave.’”

“And when you asked who this Gareth ringer was?” Joe cut to the chase, telling himself that the shiver that passed through him had more to do with his damp clothing than the eerie anecdote Methos was relating.

“All Myrddid did was shrug and say, ‘One of the _Sidhe_ in all probability.’”

“The what?” Joe blinked.

“The beings that the fairy stories were based on.”

Dawson bit back his knee-jerk, _get real_ response. Trying to say it without a smile, he asked, “You’re tellin’ me you’ve met fairies?”

Methos sighed. “I don’t know what that thing was that Averlin called up, but it wasn’t Gareth. It…gave me the creeps, if you must know. I tried to talk to it, but it avoided me the same way it did Averlin and Myrddid.”

“So did you expose the imposter?” Joe asked.

“I wanted to, but Myrddid wouldn’t let me.”

“What?” Joe gaped. “Why not?”

“For the same reason Darius would have kept silent. Myrddid said that its kind were fading, that the poor thing was desperate for a foothold in this realm. He insisted that the creature was no threat to us and reminded me that it wasn’t so different than we Immortals were, hiding among mortals, concealing our natures. So…I followed my master’s bidding and did nothing,” Methos said.

“And what happened?” Joe questioned, expecting to hear that the doppelganger had killed everyone in their beds one night.

“Nothing, immediately,” Methos answered. “A year to the day that Gareth had been lost in battle, we found Averlin dead by his own hand.”

“And the other Gareth?” Joe asked, prepared for anything. 

Methos’ response was almost anti-climatic, “Gone, like a wind. The sentries never opened the gates for him. Gareth just vanished from the keep like the morning dew.”

“I don’t get it,” Joe admitted, creeped out by the tale.

“Neither did I, but…it taught me a lesson, Joe. Intent and focus are everything in these arts. When you aren’t specific…unexpected things happen. I’m not going to make Averlin’s mistake.”

“So what are you goin’ta do?” Joe asked.

“Go search Arronville again and then--”

They both jumped as the phone blared. It had been so long since the barge’s phone rang that they both stared at each other as if they’d never heard the sound before.

“It’s probably just Amanda,” Joe said. Amanda, the Vallicourts, Kit, Grace, Marcus and a host of the Highlander’s other friends had been tying up the barge’s phone so much those first few months after the abduction that Inspector Lebrun had asked Methos to request that they limit their inquiries. But as the months passed and MacLeod never surfaced, the calls dropped off. Lebrun had removed his bug at the end of April and by July, the barge’s phone hardly rang at all as Mac’s other Immortal friends dealt with their loss and moved on. Nowadays, only Amanda called with any regularity, and as far as Joe knew, it had been a good six weeks since Methos or he had heard from her.

“You’re right. She’s about due,” Methos agreed, rising wearily from the coffee table to answer the phone, which was over at Mac’s desk, sharing its space with three foot-high piles of dusty books. 

“You want me to talk to her?” Dawson offered. In some ways, this was the worst part, having to tell the people who cared about Mac over and over again that there had been no word.

“No, it’s okay, Joe. I’ll handle it,” Methos gave a tired smile and picked up the receiver.

Looking at him, Joe didn’t think his friend could handle much more. He wished that he could talk Methos out of their trip up north, but knew better. It had meant so much to the other man that he’d have some company on his search that Joe didn’t have the heart to disappoint him. At least it had stopped raining, Joe thought, shaking his head at the incredible turn the night had taken.

“Hello. Duncan MacLeod’s residence,” Methos answered, his sleek voice sounding very much like a paid service in its professionalism. “Can I help you?”

His attention drifting, Joe looked back at the harp on the couch end. He was tempted to pick it up and fiddle with it, but he knew that would only upset Methos…and violate the unspoken trust Methos had given him. Joe didn’t need to have it spelt out to him how deep a secret the confidence Methos had shared with him was. Perhaps the deepest honor of all was the fact that Methos hadn’t even asked for his silence. So, instead of satisfying his curiosity and meddling with matters best left untouched, he just sat there and stared at the instrument, trying to resign its unremarkable appearance with its truly amazing abilities.

His peripheral vision caught sight of Methos suddenly stiffening, the Immortal’s body seeming to turn to stone as he voiced a tense, “Yes.” A long pause followed in which Methos just listened before he spoke again, “Yes, I know the place. I’ll need some assurance that the article is…intact.”

Joe’s heart caught in his throat as he interpreted what those strained words meant. The article in question had to be MacLeod. Methos had to be speaking to the kidnappers. After eight, goddamn months the bastards finally got around to calling them. Joe’s fury was seconded only to his concern over what shape Mac would be in after so long a captivity.

“I see,” Methos said after another brief interval. “No, I still want it back. I’ll be there in an hour. Yes, I’ll come alone.”

Another kind of man would have made a threat at that point – hell, Duncan MacLeod would have made one – but Methos merely hung up the phone. The ancient Immortal just stood there bent over the desk for the longest time. Finally, Methos straightened and murmured, “And so it begins.”

“That was them,” Joe said as Methos turned back towards the living room. There was no need to specify what _them_. That was the only call that had been on either of their minds since February.

Methos nodded.

“Who is this sick bastard?” Joe demanded. “What kind of monster makes people wait eight months before contacting them? He did say he who he was – didn’t he?” Joe checked.

“He didn’t have to give his name,” Methos said. “It was Alexander Longford.”

“What? _He’s_ had Mac all this time?” Dawson couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

“So he claims,” Methos replied, sounding totally dead. “I have no reason to doubt his word.”

“But…I’ve kept tabs on both him and Cassandra this entire year. He hasn’t been to the Continent once since February, let alone France. I’ve gotten daily reports, Methos. I swear, the bastard’s been nowhere near Paris since he faced you in January! His Watcher filed a report this morning that Longford flew over here on company business, but…it’s the first time since January.”

“It’s all right, Joe. There’s no way his Watcher could have known. A man with his financial empire doesn’t need to dirty his hands personally. All it would take was a single phone call or email and the details would be arranged,” Methos said.

“So what are you gonna do?”

Methos shrugged. “Meet him, of course. I’ll keep my promise to you, Joe. No matter what it takes, I’ll get Duncan back alive.”

Joe couldn’t help but ask, “D-did you speak to Mac?”

Methos gave a slow, negative shake of his head, “Longford said he was indisposed at the moment.”

A chill passed through Joe at the quaint wording, “What the hell do you think that means? You-you think he’s still alive?”

“He’s alive,” Methos answered, without any trace of doubt. “He’s…probably not in any condition to come to the phone at the moment.”

Abruptly recalling what Methos had told him about seeing Mac buried alive, Joe bit his lip to keep in his next comment. Methos was going out of his way to spare his feelings. There was no reason he should make it any harder on the poor guy.

Methos continued with, “Don’t worry, Joe. Our kind are hard to kill. If he’s alive, he will heal. Duncan MacLeod is the most resilient spirit I’ve ever met. I have to go now.”

“I’m going with you,” Joe insisted in a tone that would brook no argument.

“I’m sorry; that’s not possible. I said alone. I…won’t take any chances with his life. Even for you,” Methos took a deep breath. Joe could see the man framing his next line, choosing each word with extreme care. “If by chance I don’t bring Duncan back tonight, may I ask a favor of you?”

Everything in Joe rebelled at what was being requested of him. Mac was his friend. He had every right to be there. But the desperate need in that exhausted face made him hold his tongue. Methos was stretched so thin at the moment that he didn’t look like he could deal with another conflict. 

“Name it,” Dawson said.

The absolute relief in those strained features made him glad he’d chosen to go gently. 

“There’s a map on the table over there. Go to the place with the ink star on it. There’s a green warehouse there by the name of Montefiore. Duncan will be there. I – I need to know that you’ll take care of him for me, Joe.”

Joe swallowed hard, his throat so tight he could hardly breathe. 

“You’ve got my word on that,” Dawson promised. 

His hard-etched features going very soft, Methos replied, “I never needed a promise, Joe. Your word’s always been good here.”

It was like the man was unconsciously rubbing salt on an open wound, for they were both painfully aware that the reverse wasn’t always true. For the longest time after Bordeaux, even after Mac and Methos became involved, Joe had required concrete proof from this man.

“Methos…”

“You’ve been a good friend to both Duncan and me, Joe. Live and grow stronger.”

“This…sounds like goodbye,” Joe choked out.

To his complete despair, Methos didn’t even attempt to snow him. “It might be. I’m…not as good as I was last year and…I won’t do anything to endanger his life. Duncan MacLeod is not going to die because of me.”

“Get this through your thick head, _you are not expendable_! And you’re not to blame here!” Joe insisted. “Longford--”

His expression very tender, Methos interrupted, “I don’t really have time for this now, Joseph. With luck, I will see you again. But if I don’t, there’s a letter in the top drawer of Mac’s desk with my solicitor’s name and address on it. Please see that it gets to him.” Methos’ gaze strayed to the couch, “And, if it wouldn’t be too great an imposition, would you see that the harp and the rest of this stuff gets to Cassandra?”

Not knowing what else to say, Joe gave a mute nod. He could feel the heat of the tears coursing down his cheeks. Obviously, Methos’ estimation of his own ability to best anyone in a challenge concurred with Dawson’s own. 

They stared at each other for a long moment, then Methos shocked him by leaning forward to plant a kiss in the center of his forehead.

“Goodbye, Joe, take care of yourself, my friend.”

Before Joe could find his voice, Methos had turned away. His guts twisting inside him, Dawson watched Methos retrieve MacLeod’s katana from where it had hung on the wall over the hearth since Valentine’s Day. Without another word, Methos hurried to the stairs, slipped Mac’s sword into his long black overcoat’s hidden sheath and left the barge.

Joe listened to those light footsteps cross the deck above and descend the gangplank. The Land Rover’s engine fired up, and then Methos was gone.

For good, in all probability.

Joe irritably wiped the tears from his face and just stood there, not knowing what to do. Ritchie, Mac…and now Methos, all gone from his life. Twenty years ago when he first joined the Watchers, he never would have thought that he’d know an Immortal personally, let alone come to consider them his closest friends. But, however it had happened, that was where he was right now. From the time he’d first taken the assignment, he’d had a special regard for the Highlander. Hell, who wouldn’t? The man was a living, breathing hero. And Adam Pierson…he’d hung with him when he’d thought the Researcher nothing but a college kid, now the oldest Immortal was like family to him…hell, they weren’t like family. They were family. Against their better judgment, Methos and he had been adopted into the Clan MacLeod. 

The one thing watching Duncan MacLeod for the better part of his adult life had taught him was that a man didn’t sit safe when a Clansman was in danger.

Hobbling back to the dining table that was doubling as a sorcerer’s workbench, Joe Dawson stared down his honor. He’d given Methos his word that he wouldn’t interfere – no! – he had given his word that he would take care of Mac, the not-interfere part was an unspoken given. It was a technicality, Joe knew. But Methos had a couple of law degrees; he’d appreciate the distinction. And even if Methos didn’t cut him some slack, the only thing that truly mattered was that he survived.

The pain in his aching stumps momentarily daunted him, making Joe question how much help he could possibly be. The tattered remains of his Watcher’s Oath aside, it wasn’t like he could wade in there and take Longford on himself. Or could he?

Joe’s hand slipped into the pocket of his brown jacket, fingering the revolver he’d carried there since the night MacLeod had been abducted. He’d sworn that he was never going to stand an impotent witness again. If someone came for Methos the way they had Ritchie and Mac, they were going to have to go through him first.

But he couldn’t just go blundering into a challenge blind. He wasn’t fool enough to believe that he could sneak up on anyone unnoticed. If Longford saw him, there was every chance he’d kill Dawson, and if Methos also lost his challenge, there’d be no one there to help Mac – providing the Highlander was still alive. That was one promise Joe had no intention of breaking.

Inspiration coming out of the blue, Joe turned to Mac’s computer. His honor might have gone the way of the dodo bird, but he’d be goddamned if he’d lose another friend to this sadistic bastard. Pausing only long enough to cover all his bases, Joe bent over the keyboard once the software loaded and quickly composed his email.

***********************

Focus, he had to focus, Duncan’s life was depending upon him. As he paused at the top of the ramp above le Porte de Tournelle, waiting for a break in traffic, Methos took a deep breath and tried to compose his jangled nerves. But now that the moment he’d suffered eight long months for was upon him, he couldn’t stop shaking. One way or another, the wait would end tonight.

Finally, there was a lull in the flow of cars and he was able to pull out onto the main road. He’d been to Arronville so many times this year that his car practically knew the way itself. Methos couldn’t even count the number of times he’d searched the area around the Montefiore Warehouse. He still couldn’t imagine where Duncan was buried. He’d all but excavated the small copse of woods along the stream there and searched every inch of ground, both cement covered and earthen. Every time he went, he made sure he walked through the industrial areas as well, on the off chance MacLeod were buried in a cellar, but he’d never been to a place so free of Immortal signatures.

Only now did he begin to wonder if maybe he’d just timed his searches wrong. He usually went in daylight. If Mac were awake and screaming at night…it was entirely possible that MacLeod might have been dead in the daylight hours. Methos cursed his own stupidity. He was accustomed to thinking outside the box; why hadn’t he come at night even once? Or come more frequently? 

Of course, MacLeod mightn’t have been held here at all. Longford might have had Mac interred somewhere else and exhumed him for tonight’s Halloween party, but…Methos didn’t doubt his own abilities that much. Every time he’d searched for Mac using the skills Myrddid had taught him he ended up in Arronville. Mac had been there. The Highlander might have been dead every time Methos visited the area, but he’d been there all along. 

As his speeding Land Rover ate up the miles, Methos’ thoughts turned to the man who’d caused all this.

Alexander Longford…Twenty-five hundred years might have passed since the Macedonian ruled the world, but the man was obviously still a master strategist. Like all conquerors, Longford knew where to hit an enemy where it hurt the worst, and, Christ, was Methos hurting now. 

Eight months. In the scheme of his life, it seemed an insignificant amount of time. If asked, Methos would have said that he could endure anything without breaking for that brief an interval, providing he lived. But now…no torture he had suffered in all those long years had prepared him for the nightly visions of Duncan MacLeod shrieking in his grave. His resiliency had been sapped away after the first three months. Now…he was living on nerves and willpower, stretched so thin he didn’t think he would ever recover, for, when all was said and done, this was his fault. 

If it weren’t for Mac’s association with him, none of this would have happened to MacLeod. Ritchie would still be alive; Duncan would be above ground and healthy. As was so often the case, Methos felt that the only thing he’d brought the people he cared the most about was pain and suffering. For the very first time in his life, Methos didn’t think he could live with this kind of guilt, which was strange for a man who’d endured three-thousand years of Death’s sins on his conscience. But the nightmares Death had wrought were impersonal, visited upon strangers. Nothing had ever been more personal to Methos than the living Hell his lover was now enduring. 

Even if by some miracle, Mac were to emerge untouched by this incident, Methos didn’t know if he could face his friend. How did you say sorry for 250 days of torture? How did you ask forgiveness for not rescuing MacLeod before his captor tired of the game and finally made contact? How could he ever make up for poor Ritchie Ryan?

He couldn’t, of course. Methos knew that, had known it from the second he’d seen Ryan’s headless body crumpled on the dock.

All he could do now was get Duncan to safety and deal with the fiend who had orchestrated this depravity. The feelings the very thought of Longford raised in him were the only hard things left intact inside him, and they were implacable. He’d keep his promise to Joe. Longford would pay for this. If Methos were too broken by these last eight months to rectify the mistake he’d made last January, then Death surely would.

Before he knew it, he was pulling up the pothole-ridden drive to the warehouse and factory district. There was little traffic down this road these days. Methos remembered a time when the canning factory and paper mill had been thriving businesses, but it had been decades since the buildings were used. The two factories and three warehouses huddled here amongst the overgrown woods just off the banks of the Seine were as forgotten as the men who had built them. 

He pulled up beside a sleek new motorcycle that was painfully reminiscent of Ryan’s Kowasaki. Longford’s means of transportation pretty much cinched Methos’ theory that Mac had been here all along. 

Methos paused as he stepped out of his car, gazing up at the half-moon overhead. The sky was clear and bright now. Each star stood out against its ebony background like rhinestones on black velvet. The sweet smell of rain was still strong in the air. A chill wind ripped at Methos’ face as he stared up at the blindingly bright orb, silently asking her blessing, not for himself, but for Mac’s sake.

The warehouse he was headed to was as dark as its neighbors. The silver moonlight picked out the faded white letters spelling out _Montefiore_ on the cracked green paint of its nondescript front, tinting them with an eerie glow.

Methos was a hundred yards from the place and already he could feel the signature of an extremely powerful Immortal waiting inside. Longford was nearly as old as he was and had taken far more heads than Methos in the last two millennia, so he had a considerable presence. The deserted industrial park was practically vibrating from their combined signatures. Between them, they had over nine-thousand years of accumulated power. A headhunter would get a hard-on just being in the vicinity of this nondescript warehouse tonight.

Methos took a deep breath and closed his eyes, reaching out from the inside, searching for Mac. All he could feel at first was Longford. The Macedonian’s signature had all the force of a summer thunderstorm. Methos reached for Mac’s familiar crashing waves signature…and came up blank. All he could feel under Longford was a feeble Immortal thread that was so thin it was barely there…the kind of presence an Immortal might carry who’d expended most of his energy dying and reviving for eight months without sustenance ever once passing his lips.

Longford had much to answer for.

After slipping Mac’s katana out of his coat sheath, Methos patted his right pocket, comforted by the bulk of his revolver. His Bowie knife was a reassuring, lumpy weight on the lower right side of his overcoat now that the balancing sword had been removed. As prepared as he was likely to be after eight sleepless months, Methos threaded his way through the dried-out, dead weeds and the cracked cement of the delivery dock. The warehouse door opened soundlessly at his first push.

The inside was pretty much what he expected it to be – a dark cavern of shadows, dust and jagged streaks of silver moonlight filtering in from the broken, grimy windows. Those irregular patches of light were a distraction more than a help. There were abandoned crates stacked throughout the place. The insides had doubtless been looted years ago, but the containers remained, hunching like trolls in the darkness.

Methos weighed his options, and then boldly strolled down the center of the warehouse, allowing that other ancient Immortal signature to guide him to his destination. There was no point in subterfuge. It wasn’t like Immortals had any chance of sneaking up on each other.

He was halfway to the center when a sudden burst of light blinded him. Too vulnerable for comfort, his instincts had him sheltering in the thick shadows of the nearest crates before his mind could react.

“Welcome, Methullius,” Longford’s voice echoed through the warehouse.

It took a few seconds for Methos’ eyes to adjust to the light. When they did, he almost shut them against the sight that awaited him. He’d seen and done much worse in his time, but that was millennia ago when he’d had the stomach for these kinds of games. By contrast to his own misdeeds, this was actually mild, but…Duncan was a pawn in this game and that made everything too intense.

The light source proved to be the headlights on a rusting gold Ford LTD. Methos didn’t have to see the seared paint on it to know that it was the same vehicle Ritchie’s Watcher had seen Mac kidnapped in. After all, how many of those antique LTDs could be left in Paris?

The car lights spotlighted Longford against the pitch backdrop of the dark warehouse, turning his curls to molten gold and the gladius sword in his left hand to quicksilver. He was dressed in black jeans and jacket, so the rest of him blended into the background. He didn’t look as young or small, surrounded by all that darkness. It hid his barely pubescent form, turning Longford into some strange, almost other-worldly figure.

It wasn’t the image Alexander the Great presented that chilled Methos so. It was what Longford’s right hand was attached to that froze his blood. Over a hundred and twenty years had passed since he’d last faced Madame le Guillotine. Methos had hoped never to see one of the monstrous contraptions again, but there it stood, gleaming in ominous, well-oiled efficiency, with its latest victim bound to it, ready for the taking.

Methos stared at the insane tangle of filthy hair on the head sticking out of the stockade, his sense of horror churning his stomach. His brain was telling him that that motionless blob had to be MacLeod, but his heart and soul were screaming, _No, please no_! He couldn’t even see the face to tell if it were Duncan there. The hair falling over the sides of the wooden stockade and obscuring the features looked like crud-crusted dreadlocks.

Methos’ heart caught in his throat as he stared down at the guillotine’s intended victim. The brown lump looked more like a pile of manure than a human. There was so much dirt and filth on the pinned man that Methos couldn’t even determine what color his clothes had been. He was having the same problem with the prisoner’s flesh. Brown and black were all he could see, but there were places where fish-belly white streaks of skin showed through the obscene muck coating the man’s visible features, or what could be seen of them through the foul shock of his neglected hair. The matted length was darker than MacLeod’s, but if Mac’s hadn’t been washed in a number of months, it could be that black. 

The prisoner might have been alive, but he was totally unmoving. His head hung slack at an angle, his neck painfully extended. And the rest of his body…Methos’ skin crawled as he took in the captive’s unnatural, twisted position. Instead of kneeling on the ground, the man’s knees were drawn up tight to his chest in an interrupted fetal position. It almost looked like the captive’s back _couldn’t_ stretch. The man was literally dangling from his neck from the insidious device.

He’d never seen Mac that inanimate, even when sleeping. Duncan MacLeod wasn’t about stillness. Duncan was movement, passion and fire. MacLeod was everything that was good and bright in this world, a noble champion of justice. The Highlander knelt at no man’s feet and yet, there Mac lay like a marionette whose strings had been sliced.

Methos stared at the sadist that had cut those strings. After five-thousand years, Methos was a pretty good judge of character. He could tell by the look on Longford’s face how much the other Immortal would enjoy pulling that lever and beheading MacLeod right in front of him. They both knew that the fact that Methos had agreed to meet Longford at all tonight proved that MacLeod was too important to him.

Methos prayed to every god he knew that he’d be able to get both Mac and himself out of this alive, but the situation didn’t look promising. _Madame le Guillotine_ had added a whole new twist to this horror show. Methos had fully expected MacLeod to be used as a pawn in this game, but somehow, he had never expected this. His ancient enemy was a warrior, not a criminal. Methos had anticipated finding Longford’s sword at Mac’s throat. A well-placed bullet would have dealt with that quite nicely, but were he to shoot Longford now, his fall would doubtless pull the guillotine’s lever and Mac would lose his head. No matter what it took, he was determined that Duncan MacLeod was not going to die because of him.

Methos swallowed hard as he recognized just what it was going to take to get his lover out of here alive.

“Come out. Don’t be shy, Methullius,” Longford called him by the name he’d used in Greece and Rome when Methos had spent decades avoiding his former victim. 

There was no avoiding Longford now, nor any true desire to do so. Gazing down at that too-still lump trapped in Mdme. Le Guillotine’s deadly embrace, the Horseman inside Methos wanted to rip the Macedonian’s still-beating heart out of his chest with his bare hands and eat it.

Methos took a couple of steps out of the shadows. He knew it was a useless effort – Mac hadn’t so much as twitched since Methos had laid eyes on him. Still, he had to try, so he hesitantly called, “Duncan?”

There was no reaction, no movement. Were it not for the feeble Immortal signature Methos could still feel below Longford’s overwhelming one, he would have thought the man dead.

“What have you done to him?” Methos demanded, unable to take his eyes off the wreck that once had been Duncan MacLeod. 

“Done?” Longford laughed. “I’ve done nothing – absolutely nothing.”

“What do you mean _nothing_! Look at him!”

Longford did as requested and gazed down at MacLeod. “It’s amazing the changes eight months in a car trunk will wreck on even the most arrogant man’s constitution – isn’t it?”

Methos flinched. Eight months in a car trunk…no water, no food, no light, no room to move…that explained the twisted spine and catatonic state. He’d seen men reduced to this strait before; though rarely an Immortal. Their kind didn’t survive long when rendered defenseless. For that matter, most of the mortals Methos had seen this bad off didn’t recover either.

The realist in Methos ruthlessly appraised the situation. An Immortal’s body might survive that kind of ordeal, but his mind wouldn’t, not intact. Methos had never known anybody trapped with oxygen for that long who made it back to sanity. The longest he’d heard of an Immortal surviving entombed like that was Nefritiri. She had lasted two thousand years in an Egyptian sarcophagus mainly because she hadn’t had sufficient oxygen to revive until the twentieth century grave robbers had broken the original seal on her vault. By contrast, Mac had been alive and conscious the entire time of his captivity. Dying and waking to die again had become the rhythm of his life. A man didn’t recover from something like that…ever.

“Do you still want him back, Methullius? There’s not much left of him,” Longford mocked.

“There’s enough,” Methos grated out.

“You know what I want from you,” Longford said.

Methos gave a slow nod, “To destroy me.” His gaze turned from those hateful blue eyes to the silent Immortal held captive on the guillotine. “You’ve already accomplished that.”

“Not entirely,” Longford shot back.

“In every way that matters. Move away from that switch, Longford. Let’s take this outside…like men,” Methos added the last bit as an afterthought. Such macho posturing hadn’t had any effect on him in years. He didn’t care if his opponents thought him a man or a sniveling coward. All he cared about was keeping his head. But, even though he didn’t practice that behavior anymore, he still understood the psychology of it enough to use it effectively. 

“What would you know about fighting like a man?” the Macedonian spat.

“He is not part of what lies between us,” Methos tried to reason, terrified that Longford would pull that lever out of spite.

“He gave you succor. That alone damns him,” Longford shot back.

“What you’ve done to him is punishment enough for any crime…even my own. Leave him out of this and face me,” Methos challenged.

“No. No more challenges. Tonight is about punishment and revenge. I offer you the opportunity to reveal your true colors, Methullius. You get to decide whether he lives or dies. If MacLeod means that much to you, you can trade places with him…or run and allow him to die in your stead,” Longford spelt out the terms Methos had anticipated since he’d gotten that call on the barge.

“If you kill him, I will take your head while you’re down with the Quickening,” Methos promised, playing the only card he had left.

It was an impotent threat. They both knew if Duncan weren’t worth his head, he would never have come here.

“But MacLeod will be dead, and it will be your choice that dooms him. He was so damned sure that you weren’t the same man I knew, but I intend to prove it to you both that you’re still that same selfish, murdering bastard. Have you really changed, or was everything you told MacLeod just another lie? Go ahead and walk. Prove me right.”

“Does your head mean so little to you these days?” Methos questioned. “Step away from that lever and you have a chance of keeping your life.”

“If you kill me now, he dies. I don’t mind watching you squirm every time he crosses your mind for the rest of eternity,” Longford replied. “I offer you a simple trade – your life for his. What’s it going to be, Methullius?”

To his never-ending shame, Methos didn’t have a pat answer on his tongue. He’d spent the last five-thousand years fighting to keep his head on his shoulders. The idea of voluntarily forfeiting it was unthinkable, and, yet, he could see no other way clear here. If he didn’t go along with Longford, Mac would die. And if he did… 

Every self-preservation instinct Methos owned was screaming for him to get out of here, to just turn and run. Even in the unlikely event that he could somehow get Mac away from Longford and keep his own head, Methos knew that the chances of bringing Mac back to the world of the living were slim to non-existent. It would be a mercy to take MacLeod’s head at this point.

But Methos’ entire life had been about beating the odds. He also knew how time could heal. Give it a century or two and even this might right itself. And, beyond that, it was Duncan MacLeod lying there. Methos had never had an attachment this strong…or inexplicable. This man had stood by him through revelations that would have damned him with anybody else. The acceptance Mac had given him meant everything to him. And now he was going to have to prove that.

Methos stared at the scenario before him, looking for a way to dispense Longford without killing Mac. Even if he could get his revolver out quickly enough to get off an accurate shot without Longford having time to react, there was every chance the instinctive jerk the body gave upon a bullet’s impact would convulse the hand on the guillotine’s lever. And if he aimed for the hand itself, the same thing would doubtless happen. Methos was well and truly behind the proverbial eight ball. He had two choices – run and live or agree to Longford’s deal. 

Life beckoned to him. All he had to do was turn and run…and abandon Mac as he had Byron and every friend ever used as a hostage against him. Five-thousand years of not-risking his head was some pretty stiff conditioning to even try to overcome. But MacLeod had stepped beyond his stringent cultural conditioning for Methos’ sake. Now it was Methos’ turn to do the same.

Duncan MacLeod would not die for loving him. The Highlander would live to grow stronger. And when the Game finally ended, it would be Mac there to see the insane custom die out.

So, his head was forfeit. That was what it all boiled down to. The only thing he could hope to do at this point was wrangle a promise out of Longford to get Mac to Joe’s safekeeping, for, looking at the state Duncan was in, Methos didn’t think Joe would be able to handle moving him alone. Though how the Watcher would protect an incapacitated Immortal boggled the mind. 

“Have you made up your mind yet? My hand is growing weary,” that cultured British voice pointed out.

Methos attempted to swallow, but his mouth was dry as sawdust. 

“Will you promise to get MacLeod to my friend Joe Dawson on a barge moored at _le Porte de Tournelle_?” Methos rasped, every muscle in his body freezing in instinctive dread of dying after all these years. 

“The bargain is his life. I am not a taxi service,” Longford denied.

Methos gazed down at Mac’s unconscious form. He knew if MacLeod were awake, Mac would be yelling for him to get the hell out of here. Self-sacrifice was such an integral part of his lover’s character that Mac would like nothing more than to die for a friend’s sake. It was not part of Methos’. 

Even now, the pragmatist in him was demanding that he cut his losses and run. His death would do nothing to restore MacLeod. The Macedonian had effectively killed them both here. Longford knew as well as he did that MacLeod’s mental damage was such that he might never recover. Mac could very well spend the remainder of eternity an insensible invalid. Methos knew that Dawson would take care of MacLeod for as long as the mortal lived, but…Joe’s lifespan was that of a gerbil when compared to an Immortal. MacLeod could once again fall into this endless suffering of the cycle of rebirth and death…until a headhunter felt him and took his Quickening. 

But…where there was life there was hope. Joe would come tomorrow and get Duncan out of here. That’s what he had to concentrate on now, not what would happen in the next few minutes. The letter that Methos had left for his solicitor would more than provide for both Joe and Mac for the next millennia or so – there was no sense keeping his rainy day, emergency resources when he’d have no more days. 

Staring down at Mac, Methos couldn’t contain his fury, “Duncan MacLeod was the best of us, Alexander. He didn’t deserve this.”

“He bedded you knowing your crimes against humanity. A truly good and honorable man would have executed you,” Longford answered.

About to question Longford’s honor, Methos held his tongue. Venting his fury at this point would only get Mac killed. And, who knew, maybe Longford was right. Methos knew that were he anyone else, Mac would have taken his head last year during that Kronos business. It was only Mac’s feelings for him that had stayed his blade. Perhaps this was some form of cosmic justice, after all.

“Your time is up. What say you? Does he live or die? It matters not to me which course you choose, only that you make the decision.”

Biting back on his rage, Methos nodded. “All right. My life for his. You spare him and you can have my head.”

Longford actually seemed disappointed. After staring at him for a long moment, Longford ordered, “Drop you sword, coat and shirt on the floor in front of you.”

“My shirt?” Methos questioned.

“I know you too well to trust you, Methullius. There will be no surprises tonight. If you delay any longer, you can add your trousers to the pile as well.”

Cold already just at the thought of removing his coat in this freezing warehouse, Methos dropped his sword to the floor in front of him. He was simmering with too much rage to be afraid right now.

He’d been too distracted of late to do laundry, so he wasn’t wearing underwear. If Longford asked for his pants as well, he’d be meeting his death starkers and that was something he’d prefer to avoid. It had been more than a millennium since he’d knelt naked before a foe. He didn’t intend to die that way, if at all possible.

“Now what?” Methos demanded as his bare chest puckered into goose flesh. He was starting to shiver already, the cold somehow making his imminent demise that much more real to him.

“There are a pair of handcuffs on a crate about ten feet to your right,” Longford said. “Kindly retrieve them.”

Methos looked to his right and saw a silver flash in the center of the crate closest to the Ford’s headlights. Gulping, he crossed through the dust mote blizzard in the glaring spotlights of the car’s headlights and picked the metallic cuffs off the dusty wooden box. The handcuffs were law enforcement, regulation issue quality. There would be no getting out of them.

“Secure them to your right wrist please,” Longford instructed. 

Recognizing that this was really going to be the end, Methos took a deep breath and did as ordered.

About to close them over his left wrist as well, Methos stopped dead at the interruption of, “Behind you, please.”

The Macedonian was really taking no chances, Methos acknowledged, and reluctantly reached behind himself to secure the second cuff, effectively eliminating his only hope of overcoming his opponent. He might have managed to win a scuffle with Longford with his hands in front of him, but with them tied behind him his entire balance would be off.

The icy metal against his wrists only increased his shuddering.

“Come,” Longford waved Methos towards him with the sword that would take his head. And still the Macedonian’s left hand firmly gripped the guillotine’s lever. Methos had trusted in his opponent’s honor, but as he slowly approached, he remembered all the times Death had played these games and taken the hostage’s life anyway, just to see the look on the defeated man’s face when his beloved died.

His nerves a jangled wreck, Methos was preternaturally conscious of his surroundings at the moment. Seeing everything as if for the first time, even though he knew it was his last, he took in the stark lighting, the dust motes that danced like stars suspended against the blackness behind them, and the stained, dull floorboards underfoot. Even these unremarkable sights were precious to him. He didn’t want to die; didn’t want his Quickening to go to this sadistic bastard. When Kalas had been hunting him, Methos had been able to bear the thought of dying because he’d chosen the man to whom he would give his Quickening, but to cede all that power to someone like Longford was almost a criminal act in itself. 

But Methos had eliminated all his other options at this point. Even if he did decide to bolt, it was doubtful if he’d get very far. He was as committed to this course as it was possible to get.

When he got within ten feet of the guillotine, Methos almost gagged. The stench rising from the man pinned to the device literally brought tears to his eyes. He couldn’t understand how Longford could bear to stand that close for as long as he had. Mac smelt like a cross between a neglected outhouse and the most pungent homeless person. 

It only made sense. MacLeod had been locked in a car trunk for eight months without access to hygienic facilities. Although Mac had probably taken in no sustenance since his abduction, his bladder and bowels would have voided repeatedly until empty. Just being this close to the source of the reek made his stomach lurch, and he’d been both Death and doctor. 

Methos hadn’t smelt anything this bad since the last time Madame le Guillotine had been in vogue, when the proletariat had filled the Bastille with more nobility than Louis the Fourteenth had hosted at his grandiose balls. 

“How far the mighty have fallen, hey?” Longford chuckled, correctly interpreting Methos’ horror at his lover’s state.

Methos had hoped that when he was closer, Mac might look up, that there would be some hint of recognition or even consciousness, but the Highlander’s head hung slack below the guillotine’s blade. Methos stared at the portions of Mac’s face visible through his filthy hair, needing to see his friend one last time, but…even though Mac’s right eye was visible and a bit of his cheek, there was no recognizing Duncan for the man he’d been. MacLeod’s long beard was nearly as unkempt and foul as the hair on his head; while the eye…there was so much muck from daily discharge around it that Methos knew it would take hours of soaking under hot towels to remove enough of the yellow and brown gunk from MacLeod’s cemented together eyelashes to allow the eyelids just to separate. He didn’t even want to think about how sensitive to light Mac would be for a while.

And all this had happened to Duncan because of him. It hurt so much to see this brave and honorable man reduced to this state that Methos almost welcomed death. This was one regret that he knew he couldn’t live with. 

When Longford’s order of “Move it!” came, it was almost a relief.

“One moment,” Methos rasped, stepping up to where Mac’s head was secured to the guillotine. His hands bound behind him, Methos crouched down until his face was a couple of inches from that pungent rat’s nest of hair. Although the reek rising from the unconscious man still made him want to vomit as he leaned in close, Methos whispered, “Live and grow stronger, Highlander, and…forgive me…if you can.”

Although everything within him rebelled at the idea of getting any closer to that repugnant collection of bones and flesh that had once been the man he’d loved so dearly, Methos forced himself to bend the rest of the way and deposit a fast kiss to the matted head.

Wrong move, between his own exhaustion and the reek of raw excrement, Methos found his senses reeling as a wave of dizziness all but made him pass out.

“How touching,” Longford sneered.

That got him up but fast. Death ready to take Longford on with his very teeth, Methos straightened and glared at the perpetual adolescent before him. As he did so, a strange sense of virtue settled over him. Methos had spent over twenty-five centuries convinced that he and his brothers were the worst degenerates history had produced, but he’d finally met someone more depraved than Death, perhaps even worse than Kronos. For all their villainy, none of the Horsemen had ever inflicted this kind of malingering pain upon a person. They may have gleefully slaughtered and delighted in drinking their victims’ blood, but they had never walled one of their kind up and left him to suffer alone into eternal insanity like an Immortal Fortunado. Their victims had endured incredible cruelties, true enough, but there wasn’t a one of them that had died alone. And looking at MacLeod, Methos thought that there was something to be said for that.

“I suppose you want me on my knees,” Methos preempted the inevitable order, allowing his contempt to creep into his tone as he moved the last few feet closer. He might die today, but he would do so with dignity. It was his choice and perhaps even his honor to die so that Duncan MacLeod might live.

It was strange that at the moment of his death he would embrace the foolish notions he’d spent the last millennium scoffing at, but seeing how his calm was robbing Longford of all pleasure in this, Methos finally began to understand what motivated MacLeod. When you’d lost the battle and moral ground was the only thing you could hold, there was a certain sense of accomplishment, perhaps even pride, in knowing that your opponent hadn’t been able to rob you of that last victory. 

The ancient boards creaked in protest as he knelt on them. Shivering, his kneecaps already starting to ache from the cold hardness they were pressed to, Methos’ gaze strayed to Mac’s ravaged face for one last time and then rose to meet Longford’s. 

It pleased Longford to have him kneeling before him, Methos could see it in the other man’s smile as the Macedonian took hold of the hilt of his sword with both hands in preparation of delivering the coupe de grace. 

The instant Longford’s left hand left the guillotine lever, something snapped inside Methos. One second, he was kneeling there, none too happy, but resigned to his fate, the next his head was barreling into Longford’s stomach, propelling the smaller man away from the guillotine. How he ended up on his feet so fast with his hands still bound behind his back, Methos didn’t know. His next clear awareness was of spinning way too fast for a man on the verge of physical collapse. His right leg came up, his knee catching Longford in the center of his groin.

With a pained cry, Longford went down like a ton of bricks. 

Fighting off dizziness, Methos scrambled around behind Longford. He gave the Macedonian’s curl covered head a resounding kick from behind, then allowed himself to sink down to the dusty floor as well. He could feel the splinters from the rough wood planks of the floor digging into his bare back as the monster inside him pulled his knees tight to his chest, performed a roll that was worthy of Nero’s finest acrobats, then slipped his handcuffed arms up over his butt so that they would be secured in front of him now.

Both Methos and Death were in complete agreement as to what should be their next move. Longford was rising groggily when Methos lowered his cuffed hands over the man’s head, pulled the chain between his wrists tight to the Macedonian’s throat, and then dragged Longford back towards his chest. Longford’s hands ripped frantically at Methos’ hands, wrists and forearms, his nails digging deep into bare flesh, but Methos held on.

It had been many years since Methos strangled a man. The sounds were hard to listen to, even though this was the fiend that had destroyed MacLeod, but somehow Methos found the mettle to follow through with it.

Administering death had been a science to him once. In his long-abandoned, expert opinion, Longford had precisely eighteen seconds of life left, were the noises he was making and the florid color of what Methos could see of his face anything to go by. 

Methos was relishing those final seconds one by one when Longford made a desperate move and pulled him forward, even though doing so mangled his already stressed neck. Methos felt the hot gush of blood on his hands as the chain from his cuffs ripped deep into Longford’s neck…seconds before the blade of Longford’s gladius slipped between his own ribs, straight into his left lung.

Methos gasped and tried to hang on, but Longford’s elbow followed the sword, banging him from the other side. Giving a helpless groan, Methos leaned forward to ride out the pain, and Longford slipped clear of his stranglehold in that moment of weakness.

Methos’ depleted body wasn’t able to recover fast enough. 

Longford was rolling to his feet as Methos tried to staunch the bleeding at his side.

Longford’s left hand was holding his own wound closed, gripping his bloody throat with that same expression of disbelief he’d worn when Methos had spared him on that footbridge in January, as if, once again, the man were unable to conceive how events had arrived at this point.

“You--j-just—cost—him—his—l-life,” Longford croaked out, turning towards the guillotine.

Methos tried to rally, but his injury was too grave. He could feel the blood filling his lung. He attempted to force his legs up under him, but they wouldn’t go. Nothing was working right. All there was was pain and that sense of fading that always preceded death.

“P-please,” Methos rasped, “do what you want to me, but let him live!”

Longford didn’t even look back at him. The Macedonian reached the guillotine, his bloody hand moved towards the lever and…

And then the thunder of a 38 Special resounded through the warehouse. Longford’s childish body jerked as four bullets caught him dead center in the chest and lifted him off his feet to send him crashing down to the floor nearly six feet away. His own pain-fogged eyes observed the growing scarlet pool around the fallen emperor in utter incomprehension. All Methos could think as he watched the blood bubble up on Longford’s full mouth was that a headhunter had found them and was closing in for a feeding frenzy. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it until this lung either healed or he died and revived. The latter seemed the most likely. Methos had suffered enough deaths to know when one was coming on. Only, if he gave in this time, neither Duncan nor he would keep their heads. 

Inch by excruciating inch, Methos dragged himself towards where Longford was lying beside the guillotine, his gladius still in hand. Duncan hadn’t moved throughout the entire fight. 

He was halfway to the fallen sword when he heard the intruder approach. There was no way he was going to make the weapon in time. Wondering if he had enough energy left to kick the headhunter, Methos paused for a gurgling breath…and only then realized what was missing.

There was no new Immortal signature. All he could feel at the moment was poor Duncan’s feeble thread. He wouldn’t sense Longford’s again until the Macedonian revived.

Methos turned his gaze towards the newcomer, ready for anything…except the sight of Joe Dawson approaching with his slow, shambling gait, a smoking revolver balanced with his walking stick in his left hand. Joe wasn’t quite the cavalry, but he’d do, by God, he’d do.

Methos found a smile from somewhere. “Joe,” he sighed, barely able to speak now.

“You look like hell,” Dawson greeted, his face so ashen that Methos would have thought him the one with the hole in his side. “You about to snuff it?”

Methos bit his lower lip and nodded. Forcing himself, he gasped out, “Longford…”

“I replaced the clip. He so much as twitches, I’ll empty it into him and there’re three more where that came from.”

“Boy s-scout,” Methos grated out, choking in a final breath as the lights went out for him.

When he came around an indeterminate time later, it was to find Joe leaning against the nearby crate, his gun pointed at what looked to be a recently deceased Longford.

“I had to put him down again,” Joe informed, not looking too broken up about that fact.

Methos could hardly blame him. They could barely breathe over the stench of the nearby prisoner.

Methos saw Joe’s anxious gaze turn Mac’s way.

“He’s really bad off –isn’t he?” Dawson questioned.

“Yes,” Methos replied, unable to say more with a sword so close at hand. There was a part of him that wanted very much to go over to Longford once he revived and just start hacking off body pieces the way Kaspian would have done.

“I…didn’t touch Mac. I was afraid I’d trigger the mechanism,” Joe said. “I’ve been calling him, but…he’s really outuv it. What’d that bastard do to him?”

“He left him in that car trunk over there,” Methos related the information as impersonally as he could, even though the very idea still made him want to sink his teeth deep into the flesh that he’d had such lovely vivisection fantasies about a moment ago. 

“The whole time?” Dawson gaped.

Methos nodded.

“What are you gonna do now?” Joe asked.

“What I have to,” Methos answered. He could feel the resolve hardening his own face as he pulled himself to his feet.

The first thing he did was walk back to his clothing and pick up his shirt. The fact that he could do so unhindered made him stop and stare at his wrists. The handcuffs were still there, but the chain between them had been snapped.

Lifting his wrists, he turned to Joe and questioned, “Did you…?”

“I shot the chain while you were out. Figured you might need to be mobile.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

Still shaking with the cold, he shouldered his way into his stained white Henley. Able to think past the chattering of his teeth now, Methos retrieved his knife from his coat and returned to where Joe was keeping watch over Longford and MacLeod. 

Assured that Dawson was more than capable of dealing with Longford should he revive, Methos moved to examine the guillotine. 

“What are you doing?” Joe asked after a few silent minutes when Methos made no move to touch the contraption, but simply shifted his perspective to study the guillotine from yet another angle.

“Making certain it’s not booby-trapped. I don’t want to bring it down by accident,” Methos explained. Everything looked the way he recalled a guillotine looking, but it wasn’t as though he’d ever built or repaired one of the damn things. By the 18th Century, he’d long outgrown his thirst for revenge and blood. To feel those urges stirring inside him again now, after all those centuries of disinterest, was unnerving. He didn’t want to be that person again, didn’t want to feel those sick needs, but just the thought of what Longford had put Duncan through made him thirst for the taste of the Macedonian’s blood…and not figuratively.

Once he was sure that there were no hidden traps Methos finally leaned in to free MacLeod from the device. Just being so close to the foul stench of the filthy captive brought tears to his eyes. When MacLeod’s last restraint was undone and Methos had to physically move his friend, Methos had to swallow down his own vomit. He was sure he must have handled more repulsive things in his five-thousand years of living, but at the moment, Methos couldn’t recall a single one. Mac smelt worse than a cadaver that had been rotting in the sun for three or four weeks. MacLeod’s body was certainly stiff as a corpse. With his hands still handcuffed behind him, there wasn’t any flexibility in the Highlander’s muscles at all.

Once he pried Mac off the guillotine kneeler, Methos couldn’t get his friend out of the fetal ball he was rolled in. MacLeod hung in his arms a complete dead weight. It was like trying to support a six-foot rock. There was no give in the muscles at all. Methos slid to the ground under the unconscious man’s weight. His head was swimming so bad from the stench that he could barely breathe.

The horror of what Mac had suffered hit him again, harder even than the smell. This was his beautiful, articulate lover…and it had all been done to Duncan because of him. Mac might never laugh again, might never love or even hold a conversation…because MacLeod had made the mistake of befriending him. Consumed by that reality, Methos hugged his pungent armload closer and hung his head, squeezing his eyes shut against the wreck in his arms. His entire body was shaking as he fought to contain the scream building within him. 

There were levels of guilt. Methos operated on a daily basis with a load that would cripple most men, but to be responsible for this…

Joe had feared him mad these last six months, but he hadn’t come close to what he was experiencing right now. Methos could literally feel his sanity slipping away from him with every foul breath he drew, for he knew in his heart that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men would never put Duncan together again…

**“Methos!”**

Realizing that this wasn’t the first time he’d heard his name called, Methos raised his head and stared dully in the direction from which the sound had emerged.

Joe was staring at him with such a panicked expression that Methos barely recognized his old friend’s features.

“You’ve gotta pull it together, my friend,” Joe said once their eyes met. “I can’t do this alone. We’ve gotta get Mac outta here and…deal with that.”

Joe gestured towards Longford, who still hadn’t revived. 

In this instance, hate was good, for it stirred Methos out of his pool of self-pity. Lifting his head higher, he dragged in a deep breath of the less-tainted air above. Though hardly fresh, the cooler oxygen cleared his head some.

“You with me now?” Joe questioned.

Methos gave a slow nod.

“What do we need to do?” Dawson’s command sense made it clear why he was such an asset to the Watchers that the fanatically strict organization would be able to overlook Joe’s befriending his assignment. The man was good at focusing on the inconsequentials to get past the unbearables. Methos supposed that given Joe’s history, a great deal of the perseverance came from personal experience. 

Methos knew what needed doing, and knew that he didn’t want Joe present for it, if for no other reason than for safety’s sake. Methos hadn’t a clue how destructive the Quickening of someone as old as Longford might be to a mortal caught in the crossfire.

“Could you get me a blanket from my car?” Methos forced his vocal chords to work

“A blanket?” Joe blankly repeated.

“Yes. I don’t want to bring him home in these filthy rags,” Methos explained.

Joe’s eyes gentled immediately. “Got it. One blanket coming up.”

Methos waited until Joe had cleared the area before moving. Feeling as though his abused lover would shatter if treated too roughly, he slowly lowered Mac to the hardwood floor. After what he’d been through, MacLeod probably wouldn’t have felt any rough treatment, but there was no way Methos was going to add to the mistreated man’s pain.

He wasn’t lying about not wanting to transport MacLeod in those clothes. 

The first thing he did once Mac was settled was use his knife to cut a long two inch strip off the bottom of his own Henley. He hastened to where Longford was lying. With almost vicious glee, he maneuvered the dead man’s arms behind his back and bound them there with the strip off his shirt. It wasn’t exactly a Gordian knot, but it was efficient enough to keep Alexander occupied for a while. And a while was all Methos was going to need.

Once he was sure Longford was secured, he manhandled Mac’s unliving captor onto the guillotine.

Only then did he return his attention back to Mac.

Those clothes definitely had to go. They were the major source of the stench, for all that they were almost rotting off MacLeod. 

Kneeling at Mac’s side, he used his knife to slice open the seams of the filthy shirt, jeans briefs and undershirt. He couldn’t hold in the sob when he got his first look at Mac’s body. His lover’s entire right side almost looked like the skin had been flayed off it. At first, Methos didn’t understand the injuries, for there appeared to be dozens of the lesions, but then his medical knowledge kicked in and he realized he was looking at the worst case of pressure sores he’d ever seen. He couldn’t take his horrified gaze off those livid red ruptures. They were oozing both blood and puss, crusted in some areas as Mac’s feeble energy tried to heal them, but on the whole, they were still open and running. 

Methos could well imagine the degree of agony Mac had endured while those bruises were forming. He mustn’t have been able to move at all, Methos thought, his stomach twisting in sympathy. For those sores to still be there after repeated deaths and revivals, the weight on that side of Mac’s body must have been unrelieved the entire time he was captured. Methos’ experiences with Kronos had taught him all he ever wanted to know about pressure sores, and, even on Methos’ worst day, when he thought the pain would drive him to madness, he’d had nothing that looked half that bad.

And yet, the realist inside Methos reminded him that it could be worse. Mac could have been dumped into an ocean hand-cuffed, where the flesh would have been repeatedly eaten off his bones by fish and crabs or there could have been carpet beetles in the rug he was wrapped in. Though this was bad, they’d gotten off lucky.

Methos supposed that in some ways, it was a blessing that MacLeod had died of thirst and not starvation, even though dying of thirst resulted in far more deaths than the more drawn out starving did. For all that Mac was a good ten or fifteen pounds lighter, his stomach wasn’t distended as it would have been had he starved to death. It was only water weight Mac had lost, though that was a considerable depletion. 

Methos swallowed hard as he took in the thick layer of gray grime coating Mac’s flesh. He hadn’t seen anything like that in at least five-hundred years, back in the days when it was normal to go a year or so between baths. The Roman in him had always found those periods of hygienic negligence the hardest to take, and he knew how fastidious Mac was about personal hygiene. This captivity must have been hell for him in so many ways.

The clothes dispensed with, Methos rolled Mac onto his left side and stared down at the handcuffs that still bound the Highlander’s hands behind his bloody, sore-ridden, brown-smeared, thin butt. He knew those chains must have been the bane of Mac’s existence. With his hands tied behind his back like that, Mac wouldn’t have even been able to scratch, let alone relieve any of the body pressure on those stressed areas. All he’d been able to do was lie in his own filth and go slowly insane.

The condition MacLeod’s wrists were in spoke of his mental plight. Though it was clear Mac had given up actively struggling some time ago and drifted into this coma-like state, the skin around his wrists still bore bright red scar tissue…which told Methos that Mac must have ripped the flesh off clear down to the bone before he gave up fighting. They were just lucky MacLeod hadn’t managed to sever his hands. Methos had seen one or two of their kind do that in desperation, like any trapped beast would gnaw its flesh to get free. Immortals never survived long enough in those cases to regenerate the amputated tissues. Methos knew from the time he’d been castrated that it took centuries for amputated organs to regenerate, and he’d never lost anything as vital as the use of his hands. Thankfully, Mac hadn’t either.

Telling himself over and over that the damages could have been much worse, Methos slipped out of his shirt. Rolling it in a ball, he used the garment to clean the caked excrement from Mac’s butt. Though he knew that Immortals weren’t really susceptible to infections, his years as a doctor had him instinctively starting with those open pressure wounds as he tried to minimize contagion, but they were as coated in offal as the rest of the area. 

Sick at heart, he completed the necessary duty and tossed his fouled shirt to the side. It wasn’t great, but Mac was better than before. The stench had diminished to an almost bearable reek…if one hadn’t a delicate stomach and no sense of smell…neither of which Methos could boast.

Sighing, he reached for the cuffs. Even if he’d had something that could be used to pick the lock, Methos decided that the opening was too gunked with excrement to even attempt to force it. In the end, he took Joe’s route. After retrieving his gun, Methos pulled the cuffs as far back from Mac’s body as the Highlander’s limited muscular flexibility would allow, placed the bore to the center link in the chain, aimed away from the front door so that he didn’t hit Joe should the mortal return quicker than expected, and then shot the chain clear.

It was a testament to how long Mac had been bound and the degree of his suffering that Methos couldn’t coax his lover’s shoulders to relax or his arms to fall forward in a more natural, comfortable position. Mac’s hands returned to the small of his back where they’d spent the last eight and a half months resting and his shoulders remained arched backwards as if still being tugged by restraints.

But at least his lover was free of chains and those wretched clothes now.

Though no easier to carry now, Methos managed to move MacLeod from the floor. He tottered over to the guillotine and lowered Mac onto the just-reviving Longford. 

Longford emitted the gasp everyone gave when they returned to life and then grunted as Mac’s weight landed on him an instant later.

“What are you….” Longford’s question trailed off as he gazed over his shoulder to take in his situation. Methos saw instant understanding flash in those clear blue eyes. If anything, Longford appeared startled rather than panicked by his imminent death. Methos didn’t know another Immortal who could revive in a guillotine and ask a question with the kind of calmness in his voice that Longford had when he queried, “You don’t want my Quickening for yourself?”

Methos ignored the question. There was too much rage inside of him to even try to be civil. If he delayed here any longer, the demon inside him would come out to play…and there was something in Methos that really wanted to let the Horseman have his way in this – which was why he didn’t dare risk it.

So he paused with his hand on the lever, met that ancient gaze and said with as much control as he could manage, “You should have left MacLeod out of this.”

Then Methos pulled the guillotine’s lever and raced for all that he was worth for the nearest bank of crates.

He could feel the power gathering in the stillness behind him. The first gentle wind caressed his cheek as he sought shelter behind the wooden crates, then all Hell broke loose. The lightning show was nothing short of spectacular. Methos, who had an eye fixed on the top crates in the pile to ensure that they didn’t come tumbling down on his head, could see the bolts shooting down from the cathedral-high ceiling. Then he saw MacLeod’s naked body rise up among those agonizing bolts, the raw power jolting off the Highlander’s skin like rain bouncing off the ground. 

Though it had to be one of the most powerful Quickenings Methos had witnessed, Mac never responded to it, which Methos would have believed blatantly impossible. Ignoring a Quickening was like ignoring your pants being on fire. It simply could not be done. But there Mac was, spread out midair like some surreal crucifixion victim, energy bolts that would melt lead crashing into him as he simply hung there mute in the Quickenings’ grasp. 

The power surged and grew, the winds becoming gale force as the lightning bolts broadened their strike range. Methos made a hasty retreat as the crate at the top of the pile sheltering him wobbled and moved inwards, crashing down where he’d been seconds later with a resounding boom. Other crates in the room followed suite, the detritus from then raining down in a painful shower. 

Methos had been forced to move almost totally to the exit when the energy barrage finally began to wane. Shielding his eyes against the twister of splintered wood and nails pelting him from all sides, Methos watched as Mac floated slowly back to the ground, to be deposited on the floor beside the guillotine with a strange gentleness.

Holding his breath, Methos waited. One of the most common treatments for extreme cases of catatonia was electric shock therapy. Treatment didn’t get much more shocking than the remedy Methos had just prescribed. The energy absorbed in a four-thousand-year-old Quickening should have been enough to jump-start a corpse to life.

But Mac continued to lie there like an abandoned 200 lb. pumpkin.

Sighing, Methos made his way back towards the guillotine. Even from here he could see how its wood and once shining blade had been singed by the energy. 

As he walked he could feel the dozens of cuts his bare back and chest had collected in the Quickening heal, leaving his skin spattered with little blood streaks like white-out pocks on a badly typed letter.

MacLeod was lying there in his malodorous splendor. Kneeling beside his friend, Methos softly called, “Mac?” on the off chance that MacLeod couldn’t get his pasted together eyelashes apart, but there was no response. The Highlander was still out for the count.

He could hear Joe making his careful way to his side through the Quickening debris.

“What the hell just happened?” Dawson demanded. “I thought you were going to deal with Longford! When I opened the door, Mac was floating up near the ceiling. You didn’t take him?”

Methos sighed. “I wasn’t the offended party. I thought…”

His gaze turned towards the comatose Immortal. If a four-thousand-year-old Quickening wasn’t enough to bring Mac back to his right mind, Methos hadn’t a clue as to where to go from here. At least the power had healed those pressure sores, Methos noted as he stared down at MacLeod’s filthy, but intact epidermis. Even the scars beneath the handcuffs on Mac’s wrists had closed up. MacLeod’s musculature was still bent and atrophied from disuse, but that wasn’t something that even a super-Quickening was going to cure. Like losing excess fat, only hard work on the Immortal’s part would return muscle tone and flexibility. Methos didn’t know what, if anything, would return sanity.

“Yes?” Joe prompted when Methos fell silent in his explanation.

“I thought Longford’s Quickening might bring Mac around,” Methos finished.

“And?”

“It didn’t work,” Methos testily reported, wondering how long they had before the authorities showed up here. The warehouse was fairly isolated, but the traffic on the nearest highway might have witnessed the light show.

“I can see that. What do we do now?” Joe asked.

“Get Mac home.” Methos said, taking the blanket from Joe’s hands with a muttered thanks.

“And then?” Dawson persisted.

“Then I’ll hook an IV up to him and see if getting some nutrients into his system helps,” Methos thought out loud.

“You don’t sound too hopeful,” Joe observed, knowing him too well to be fooled.

Methos shrugged. “There’s no physical cause for this, Joe. He just took a Quickening that could have kept Paris in lights for a year. He should be conscious.”

“Is it a coma?” Dawson asked.

“Comas have physical causes. This is…psychological, I think.”

“You _think_?” Joe echoed.

Methos released a slow breath and held onto his temper. Joe wasn’t trying to get on his nerves. They were both worried about Mac…with good reason. “Look, we can talk about this back at the barge, okay? I’d rather not be here if the authorities take an interest in the light show.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed, his gaze moving to the bisected body on the guillotine. “What about that?”

“Leave it for the rats,” Methos said, grimacing as he tried to secure the blanket around Mac’s curled up form and received another potent blast of Mac’s aroma.

Hefting MacLeod’s unbearably heavy weight up into his arms, Methos started the slow, arduous path back to his Land Rover. He wasn’t up to this physically. His eating habits these last eight months had been deplorable. If Joe hadn’t brought him dinner every day, he wouldn’t have had anything at all. He was paying for it now. He was so depleted, he could barely support his lover’s weight. 

“You need a hand with him?” Joe offered, as if reading his mind. The mortal did have the upper body strength to hold onto MacLeod; though how his legless friend would have balanced Mac and his canes was beyond Methos. 

Methos gave a mute shake of his head. Now that he had Mac back, nothing was taking him from him ever again. The walk to the car was an unending ordeal, but at least they weren’t interrupted by police lights. It was only as he reached the vehicles that Methos realized that he could have just had Dawson pull his veicle into the warehouse. Joe moved ahead and opened the Land Rover’s backdoor for Methos. So much for hindsight, Methos thought, gasping in relief as he finally lowered Mac to the seat.

“What now?” Joe asked.

“I need you to follow me to a medical supply company on le Rue de Madeline and guard Mac while I go inside,” Methos said. At Joe’s blank expression, he explained, “I’m going to need some equipment and supplies that I don’t have in stock.”

“Right. Do they even have 24 hour medical supply companies?” Joe asked.

Taking a deep breath, Methos gave a negative shake of his head. “No, but I don’t plan on waiting until they open at 10 tomorrow.” Seeing Dawson’s alarmed expression, Methos assured, “Don’t worry, Joe. I’ll leave money for whatever I take.” Seeing no change in those doubting features, Methos added, “I do know what I’m doing.”

“Sure you do. You’re a regular Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just remember one thing, you get caught, Sundance, and I’m leaving your ass to rot in prison,” the smile that accompanied the warning took the sting out of the words.

Methos snorted and sobered as he remembered how this night would have gone were it not for Joe Dawson’s arrival. “Thanks, Joe…for everything.”

“Don’t mention it,” Dawson reddened. “Come on, let’s blow this pop stand.”

Nodding, Methos gave Joe’s shoulder a fast squeeze, swung up into his Land Rover and turned on the ignition. The air inside reeked from his passenger, the stink so thick, he could barely breathe. Methos hastily rolled down the windows and headed back up the pothole-ridden road. 

He would have much preferred to be leaving here with a conscious MacLeod at his side, but a half hour ago, Methos hadn’t thought he’d be getting out of that warehouse at all. He was grateful to have Mac back alive, regardless of his circumstances. His prosaic side wouldn’t allow him to kid himself. He knew they were in for a long, hard haul here, perhaps even decades worth of rehabilitation work, but…where there was life there was hope, and the one thing both he and Mac had to spare was time.

Feeling almost ecstatically elated by the sound of the soft breathing coming from the backseat of his car, Methos turned onto the main road towards Paris, excited by the prospect of trying his hand at petty larceny again. The realist in him reminded him of how he’d been less than successful at his last venture to procure Rebecca’s crystals from Watcher Headquarters, but things were going so well for them tonight that Methos didn’t doubt his luck for a minute. He had Duncan MacLeod at his side again. All would be right with his world once more…in time. 

Chuckling as he drew in too deep a breath of the foul air, Methos put the pedal to the metal and let her roll. He knew he wasn’t quite sane any longer, but at least he wasn’t as miserable in his insanity as he’d been this morning. And who knew? Perhaps when Duncan was healed, his sanity might return…or perhaps not. Either way, Methos figured they’d already beaten the odds.

***************************

“Another minute and we’ll have you all cleaned up,” Methos said in a soft, almost crooning voice. It wasn’t exactly the tone one would take with a child, but it was close to it. He still wasn’t sure how much – if anything – was getting through to Mac, but he wanted to make sure his lover knew that he was in a safe environment and that it would be okay to come back.

Hell, it would be more than okay. It had only been a week since they’d finally gotten MacLeod back, and already Methos was aching to hear his friend’s voice, to see Mac laugh, or see Mac do anything of his own volition. But patience and time were the only things that were going to help MacLeod recover, and, stars knew, Methos had plenty of both.

With a gentle smile, Methos pressed the taped side of the adult diaper in place, secured the used one, leaned in to deposit a quick kiss to Mac’s forehead, checked both the nasal-gastro feeding tube and the IV feed, and then eased Mac onto his left side so he could curl back up into the fetal ball the Highlander spent the majority of his time in.

Finally straightening up, Methos arched his back to work the kinks out. He stood there a long moment, simply staring down at his friend, loving the fact that MacLeod was back in his own bed. The physical mementos of the ravages Mac had suffered these last eight months were vanished now. Getting rid of that unkempt beard had been no hardship for Methos, but he sorely missed his lover’s long, luxurious hair. By necessity, the Highlander’s hair was shorter than it had been in decades. Methos had been forced to hack everything past Mac’s ears off just to get his friend clean. But now that Duncan was clean and safe… he looked very much himself again – a bit thinner, perhaps, and much paler, but definitely himself.

His comatose self, Methos silently amended, wishing to every god he knew that Mac would roll over and complain about how hot Methos was keeping the barge or how dim the bedroom was in deference to those light-sensitive eyes that had yet to open of their own volition or get up and use the facilities or turn over and pull Methos down into the bed with him…that’s what Methos longed for most, to feel MacLeod’s furnace-hot heat covering him as Mac moved over and into him….

Time, everything would happen in its own time, Methos reminded himself. All he had to do was wait. He’d waited his entire life to find this man. He could hold out for a few weeks or decades more.

Releasing a slow breath, Methos pushed his own shaggy hair clear of his eyes, picked up the soiled diaper and moved towards the galley. He could feel Joe’s disapproval from ten feet away as he dumped his burden in the trash. With a weary sigh, he moved to the sink to wash his hands and headed for the coffee maker.

“You want a refill?” Methos asked, praying that Dawson wouldn’t voice the things Methos had seen brewing in his eyes these last six days. 

Being MacLeod’s Watcher all these years had spoiled Joe. Dawson was used to his hero taking a licking and keeping on ticking, but some things not even the strongest of their kind could rise above. Every man and Immortal had their breaking point, even Duncan MacLeod. No mortal could truly appreciate what Mac had been through, because the dying and rebirth were all magic to them – they couldn’t comprehend how painful and real each and every death was, no matter that the Immortal would get up and walk away from it later. The kind of Hell Mac had been through, no one just walked away from. It would have been far more humane had it been a mortal Longford left locked in that trunk, for there would have been a very finite limit on the amount of suffering that would be endured. Faced with an eternity of endless death by deprivation, Mac had done the only sensible thing and retreated so far into himself that nothing the outside world threw at him could penetrate anymore. 

“No…thanks,” Joe answered his coffee offer.

Methos could feel that expressive gaze digging into him as he added his milk and sugar to his mug. He could almost hear his friend searching for the right way to say what was on his mind as he took his seat across from Dawson at the dining table. 

At least there was room to put his cup down now that he’d cleared away Myrddid’s stuff and all his books. The only thing left from that desperate period was the harp sitting beside the hearth. Methos hadn’t gotten up the nerve to try it yet, but if Mac didn’t show some improvement soon, he might give it a shot.

“So, how long you gonna play nursemaid?” Joe finally asked.

Wishing there was a way around this conversation, Methos shrugged and gave a definitive, “As long as it takes.”

“He’s Immortal. That could be a very long time,” Joe reminded.

“I’ve got the time,” Methos soothed. “You want some coffee cake?”

“No,” Joe snapped, “I don’t want some coffee cake. I want you to see sense. There’s been no improvement whatsoever.”

“He’s put on four pounds and is eating-”

“You’re tube-feeding him,” Joe corrected.

“He’s still in shock. It’s going to be a while before he recovers.”

“Don’t bullshit me, man. I was in ‘Nam. I’ve seen guys like this. They don’t come back – not ever,” those words didn’t come easy to Joe. Methos could see how much it ripped Dawson’s heart out to voice a truth they both knew better than their own names.

“So what do you suggest I do, Joe?” Methos calmly questioned, hoping that if Joe faced the only alternative to what Methos was doing here, this conversation would end.

But Dawson had obviously come prepared today. There were no evasions or convenient dropping of topics. Joe looked him straight in the eye and gave the argument Methos had been dreading, “Mac wouldn’t want to live like this. You know he wouldn’t.”

“I know no such thing,” Methos replied, staring the mortal down. “It has been one week since we recovered him. For the thirty-four weeks before that, he was imprisoned in a space so confined that he couldn’t even turn over. He has died over a hundred times this year. His reality was so unbearable that he retreated deep into his own mind to protect himself from it. It’s going to take a while before Mac realizes that he doesn’t have to hide away anymore.”

“What if he never realizes it?” Joe challenged. “You gonna spend the rest of your life changing a human vegetable’s diapers? Methos, the Mac we knew is gone-” 

“He’s not gone,” Methos insisted.

“I pinched his hand really hard this morning while you were in the can…just to see what he’d do. There was no reaction at all, man. He just laid there like he couldn’t even feel it. His expression never even changed.”

Methos sighed and tried again, “Joe, he trained himself to ignore thirsting to death, oozing pressure sores all over his body and atrophying muscles. Your little pinch was nothing compared to that.”

“So what will bring him around? A Quickening didn’t do it. Neither have all the drugs you’ve been pumping into him.”

Methos tried not to respond to the list of depressing failures, but it was hard. The fact was he was running out of viable options. “Some of those drugs take a while to kick in, Joe. Their effects are cumulative.”

“On an Immortal?” Joe challenged. 

They both knew that Immortals didn’t require those kinds of remedies. Whatever was wrong with Duncan, its source wasn’t physical. They were blazing new territory here with the use of psychotropic drugs on an Immortal.

Methos ignored the question, stressing, “We just have to give it time, Joe.”

“Methos, I know how much you care about Mac, how much you want him to recover, but…”

“It isn’t just about what I want,” Methos cut in before Joe could suggest the euthanasia option that was the bottom line of this conversation. “Duncan MacLeod is too important to lose.”

“Huh?” Joe blinked, visibly not understanding Methos’ last argument. “No offense, but important to what?”

Methos stared at his friend. The man had been watching Immortals for his entire adult life. It was startling that he wasn’t following Methos, but then, Joe’s focus was on his comatose friend, not the fate of mankind. It took three or four millennia for even Immortals to start thinking along those parameters.

“Important to the Game. If our kind is going to play out this stupid farce, then Duncan MacLeod is going to be the One left at the end of the Gathering,” Methos explained, wishing that Joe would stop looking at him like he was a few cards short of a full deck.

“What do you mean _stupid farce_? Those are the rules your people have lived and died by since the first Immortal showed up,” Joe said.

“Are they?” Methos quietly challenged. “I didn’t hear those rules or mention of _the Game_ until long after my days with the Horsemen. That was only three thousand years ago. Before that…we knew we were different from mortals, but we weren’t practicing genocide.”

“What are you saying?” He’d really thrown Joe with that little ditty, Methos could see how unnerved his friend was. 

“Just that talk of the Gathering, the Game and all these bloody rules of combat showed up about the time the world was consumed with religious fervor. In a time when everyone was searching for the one true god or one true path, suddenly, there were a bunch of Immortals going around saying there could be only one and hunting heads.”

“So you’re sayin’ it’s not for real then? Joe asked, looking as totally lost as any man would when the basic premises of his existence were challenged. Joe had as much invested in the Game as most Immortals did.

Methos shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s for real. I don’t even know if that matters.”

“What do you mean you don’t know if it matters? If it’s not true…?”

“Everyone is playing that game, Joe. It doesn’t matter if the belief system is right or wrong. You saw what happened to the other Methos when he refused to play by their rules.”

“My God…you mean you’ve known this for thousands of years and said _nothing_?” Joe was totally scandalized.

“What could I have said? The other Methos spent over a hundred years insisting that we didn’t have to play. Every Immortal who bought into his give-peace-a-chance rap lost their head. You can’t change human nature. Men like to kill. If they didn’t, this stupid game would never have lasted.” Made guilty by the sick expression in Dawson’s face, Methos added, “And I might be wrong, Joe. It’s possible the whole thing is right and I just missed the boat, was in the wrong place to receive whatever enlightenment started the Game. But, if the Game is right and there can be only one Immortal left at the end, then I’m going to make damn sure that Duncan MacLeod is there that day.”

“You’re kiddin’ me, right?” Dawson questioned.

Methos took a bite of his coffee cake, washed it down with a deep sip of his sweet coffee and answered, “No, Joe, I’m entirely serious.”

“You’re tellin’ me that _you’re_ choosing the winner of the Game?” Joe checked.

“Why not me? I’ve seen and taken more Immortals than the Watchers ever heard of. I thought the winner might be Darius for a while, but even if he’d lived, he wouldn’t have made the grade.”

That got Dawson’s full attention, the way any reference to his beloved teacher would have with MacLeod. “You think Mac’s a superior candidate to Darius?”

Though Methos had been very impressed with the priest himself, he didn’t get how men who’d never met Darius could respond this way. Of course, Joe had heard enough about the hallowed St. Darius from Mac over the years to feel as if he’d known the man. So, with that thought in mind, he answered simply, “Yes.”

“Look, I think Mac’s a great guy, but Darius-”

“Was an Immortal who refused to step off holy ground. Darius stood safe behind his sanctuary gates and watched one of his closest friends die rather than risk his head defending him. Mac would never have done that,” Methos explained.

“That’s a pretty tough judgment call,” Joe complained.

“Is it? Tell me, Joe, if you could pick and chose, would you want the winner to be someone who never set foot off his sanctuary when the Nazis were taking over his own city or a man who had no hope of winning, but still had the courage to stand alone against the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for the sake of all mankind? I’ve seen us all, Joe, the best and the worst of the Immortals. And Duncan MacLeod is the best of us. He always stands up for justice. He never allows other Immortals to prey on mortals. And he has absolutely no interest in ruling. If this game is real, then for the sake of humanity, the winner can’t be a tyrant. It has to be a beneficent protector like Mac, someone who will let the new ones grow in peace once this bloody game has ended.” 

“The new what?” Joe questioned.

“Immortals.”

“But if the game is over, the winner will be the only Immortal left,” Joe argued in a confused manner.

“Will he? What makes you say that?” Methos asked.

“Well…that’s what the legend says, that there can only be one in the end…”

“For the sake of argument, let’s just say that the time comes when one of us actually does manage to murder every other existing Immortal on the planet. He will only be _the one_ until the next crop of Immortals are born and grow to maturity,” Methos explained.

“What do you mean born and grow to maturity?” Joe asked as though it were a totally alien phenomenon and not something the Watchers had been recording for millennia.

“We’re not beamed here from the mother ship full grown, Joe. I’ve seen Immortal babies as young as a few days old. I’ve never witnessed an Immortal birth, but…we have to be born here, somehow. It’s the only thing that makes sense. There are Immortals of all different ages all over the world, on every continent. Nearly every day, another one of us discovers his true nature. And no matter how many of us get killed off in this stupid game, there are new ones to replace them. I don’t see that stopping just because some psychopath manages to kill all of the existing Immortals off. New ones will be born and grow, and unless the Immortal who is left at the end of the game is someone like Mac – a protector of humanity who doesn’t hunt his own kind - the whole bloody thing will start over again.” 

“I, ah, never thought of it like that,” Joe said in a hushed tone. “You seriously believe Mac’s winning is the way to end the game?”

“He’s the best hope I’ve seen yet,” Methos answered.

“What about yourself?” Joe quizzed, seeming intrigued with the entire subject.

“What about me?” Methos asked.

“You could be the last Immortal in the game.” 

“It could end up that way, if Duncan doesn’t make it, but…I know how I respond to absolute power. I’d prefer not to have that kind of temptation cast my way again. MacLeod…he could do it. He could get all the power and then just walk away and leave the next generation in peace. He’s good enough to end this stupid game forever.” 

“He is pretty damn amazing – isn’t he?” Joe said, his fondness for his assignment overshadowing his objectivity in their hypothetical debate.

“I’ve always thought so,” Methos softly admitted, comfortable enough with Joe to allow all the levels he meant those words on to show. 

As usual Joe Dawson didn’t disappoint him. His compassion winning out, the grizzled mortal reached across the table to give Methos’ forearm an encouraging squeeze. “I’m sorry. I was way outta line before. I never shoulda said half that stuff to you.”

“No, Joe, you were totally right. That’s the rub of it. You know MacLeod wouldn’t want to live like this. I know he wouldn’t, and somewhere deep inside himself, Mac knows it, too, I’m sure. I just…the alternative is unthinkable. Do you understand?”

The sympathy in those sparkling blue eyes almost finished him. 

“I understand. We’ll…get him back,” Joe gruffly lied, doing his best to make it believable.

Too close to the edge, Methos gulped and quickly asked, “You want some of that cake now?”

His expression making it plain that Dawson knew exactly how fragile Methos’ control was at the moment, the Watcher nodded and agreed, “Yeah, sure. That’d be great.”

Joe gave him his privacy while Methos composed himself slicing the crumbling cake. When he returned to the table with two new plates in his hand, Joe silently moved the dish with Methos’ half-finished piece aside and accepted his own.

After a few minutes of quiet munching, Joe said to him, “You know, you’re pretty amazing yourself.”

“What?” Methos couldn’t mask his surprise as he looked up from his coffee cake.

“You’re always goin’ on about watching out for number one first, but…I don’t know another Immortal who ever planned on making sure someone other than himself wins the game,” Joe said.

Methos shrugged, “It’s no big deal, Joe.”

“Isn’t it?”

Methos met those confused eyes and explained, “It’s not as self-sacrificing as you make it sound. I know Mac won’t kill me, not unless I force him to…and I plan to make damn sure I never do anything that stupid.” 

“And the fact that you just happen to love him more than life is incidental, huh?” Joe shook his head. “Mac is a damn lucky man.”

Methos refrained from making the natural response to that comment – that if Mac were any luckier, he’d be dead. Joe was just trying to make him feel better. Methos didn’t need to remind Dawson again that none of this would have happened to MacLeod were it not for him. So, instead of bashing Joe for his kindness, Methos offered a lesser truth, “No, I’m the lucky one. We got him back alive. Now all we have to do is get him well again.”

“So what are you going to try next?” Joe questioned. He was a good enough actor to make the question sound hopeful, like he wasn’t the one who had been counseling euthanasia a half hour ago. 

“I, ah, want to move him out of Paris,” Methos offered, not sure how Joe would feel about that, “to someplace quieter.”

“What? Amanda and the Valicourts were too much for you to handle in one week?” Joe gave a chuckle.

“You forgot Marcus Constantine."

“I didn’t know he'd been by,” Joe said, sobering.

“Last night, after you left. Marcus got here at nine and stayed until after eleven,” Methos informed.

Joe was no fool. He saw what was troubling Methos immediately. “I didn’t know you knew Marcus.”

“I didn’t. We never ran in the same circles in Rome,” Methos answered. 

“Marcus is a good guy, but…” Joe quickly assured.

“Precisely. If he weren’t, there could have been issues. I’d prefer to avoid trouble as long as possible. I think it would be in both our best interests if I were to bring Duncan out to the country for a while.”

“Do you need help finding someplace to stay? I’ve got a coupla Watcher friends in the Rhine country who might be able to – " Joe immediately offered.

“Thanks, but I have a place in mind. I could use the company, though,” Methos confessed.

It was the right thing to say. Joe’s entire face lit up. “Like you gotta ask.”

“I’m going to need to make some arrangements up there before I can transport Mac,” Methos said. “Did Amanda leave yet? I’d really feel more comfortable if there were an Immortal we trusted here to warn you when one of us is near.”

Joe’s face darkened at the mention of Amanda. “She, ah, couldn’t take seeing him like this. She flew back to Seacouver yesterday morning. Her Watcher said she went straight to that detective she’s been seeing.”

Reading the unspoken disapproval, Methos gently reminded, “Joe, Mac told her he was living with me the last time she was here. He’s been missing for nearly a year. Life goes on.”

“You didn’t give up on him,” Dawson dutifully reminded.

“I couldn’t,” Methos admitted. “But she probably wouldn’t have either if they had been together when Mac was abducted. Cut her some slack, Joe. It’s not easy to find reasons to stay alive when someone you’ve been close to for centuries cashes in their chips. She’s handling this the best she can.”

Like Joe, Amanda didn’t believe a recovery possible. She hadn’t said as much, but Methos had seen it in her tearful brown eyes every time she looked at MacLeod. Mac had been a hero to the pair for so long that Amanda and Dawson both forgot that when all was said and done, Duncan MacLeod was only a man. His lifespan was considerably longer than that of his mortal friends, but he wasn’t impervious to pain. He could be hurt and broken like any man.

“You’re very gracious about her bailing on you after all those promises to do anything it took to find him,” Joe said.

Methos stretched his legs out in front of him, checked the clock to make sure he wasn’t scheduled to feed Duncan soon, then quietly confessed, “She never counted on finding him in that state. And…I always expect people to bail when the going gets tough, Joe. It just makes life easier when you’re prepared for it and, on those rare occasions when you encounter a friend like yourself who’s in it for the long haul, it makes it mean all the more.”

Joe blushed like a schoolboy. 

“You know, for a sarcastic bastard you have quite a way with words, “ Dawson observed.

“Thanks, I think,” Methos drolly acknowledged. “After lunch I think I’ll….”

Methos froze as an all too familiar awareness came over him.

“What?” Joe asked, looking around the barge.

“You expecting anyone with a long lifeline, Joe?” Methos questioned, his hand reaching for his nearby sword.

To his surprise, Dawson’s features relaxed. “Actually, I am. I meant to tell you earlier, but it slipped my mind.”

“What did?” 

Before Joe could answer there was a knock on the barge door. 

“Easy there,” Joe counseled as Methos approached the door with sword in hand. “This one’s a friend.”

Irritated with Joe’s manner, Methos pulled the door open, his ill humor fading as he gazed into the calmest, deepest brown eyes he’d ever seen. The woman on Mac’s doorstep had the face of an angel – serene and radiant. No matter what her features, she would have been beautiful just for the light that shone from her. Even in her slightly reserved, school-teacherish gray raincoat, gray slacks suit and high-buttoned pink blouse, with her long brown hair pulled up in a neat bun at the back of her head, there was no hiding her attractiveness. Had Methos’ heart not been given elsewhere, he would have fallen hard for her at that first sight, for, like Mary Shelly and Alexa Bond, she was one of those rare women who came along once every century or so.

Methos recognized her instantly from Watcher records. Grace Chandell. He’d read about Mac’s history with her in the MacLeod Chronicles, of course, but seeing her, Methos couldn’t understand why Mac hadn’t abandoned everything just to be with her. She had that kind of presence. It was little wonder Carlos Sandaras had stalked her for decades.

“Hello,” she said nervously, her gaze moving down to the sword in Methos’ hand. “I, ah, I’m looking for either Duncan MacLeod or a man named Joe Dawson. Are either of them here?”

“Ah, yes, please. Come in…” Methos found his tongue, stepping aside and opening the door wide so she could get past him with the bulky travel bag she held in her left hand. Her right wasn’t even anywhere near the hilt of her sword…if she were even carrying one. The way her gray raincoat was cinched tight at her waist, Methos couldn’t even see where she could store her weapon. She could, of course, have a .22 in her pocket, but her hands were nowhere near them either. She was watching Methos’ sword arm the way any Immortal would in a first contact situation; yet, she was making no move to defend herself.

Lowering his own weapon, Methos instantly apologized and led her inside, “Forgive me. I’m Adam Pierson. I’m a friend to both Duncan MacLeod and Joe Dawson…who is right here….”

Joe seemed just as spellbound by her as Methos was. As the two Immortals entered the barge’s living area, Joe hobbled forward to meet them, as visibly smitten as a teenager.

“Thank you for coming, Ms. Chandell,” Joe greeted.

“It’s Grace, please,” she corrected. “You said in your phone call that Duncan was in some kind of trouble…?”

Methos was stunned by her courage. The last he’d heard, Grace Chandell’s newest practice was in northern California. On the word of a stranger, she’d traveled two thousand miles, entered what could be a trap with an unfamiliar Immortal…all for the sake of Duncan MacLeod. It never ceased to amaze him the degree of loyalty his lover inspired…both in others and himself.

“I’m afraid that’s right,” Joe said. “He’s--”

“In there?” she smiled, looking past them to the unseparated bedroom area where a dark head could be seen bundled beneath the duvet, next to the IV stand that was keeping Mac hydrated. 

“Yes,” Methos agreed.

“How did you know to call me?” Grace asked, looking from one of them to the other, her confusion clear.

It was a question that should have been asked before she ever got on the plane that brought her here, Methos thought, his own survival instincts appalled at her lack of caution. Joe knew of her history with MacLeod and her whereabouts from his connection with the Watchers, but that wasn’t a source they could reveal to the lovely Immortal.

Thinking fast, Methos extemporized, “Mac mentioned you a couple of times. He said that you were one of the most talented healers he’d ever met.”

“I looked your name up in his address book the other day,” Joe added with a sincerity that would have fooled even Methos.

“Ah, of course.” Grace’s large doe eyes scanned the barge. “Where is Tessa?”

Methos swallowed. It was a natural enough question for her to ask. The last time Grace Chandell had had any contact with Duncan, the Highlander had been living here on the barge with Tessa Noel.

“I’m afraid Tessa was killed in a street crime over five years ago,” Methos gently informed.

The genuine distress in Grace’s face made him like her all the more. “Oh, poor Duncan. He loved her so deeply. He must be lost without her.”

Methos didn’t know what to say. 

To his eternal gratitude, Joe answered with, “When one door closes, another opens.”

Grace was well named. She gave a soft smile that would in no way reveal that she might have had a personal interest in MacLeod’s availability and asked, “He found happiness again?”

“I’ve known him over sixteen years and never seen him happier,” Joe attested.

“I’m glad for him,” Grace said. “We must get him healed so that he can return to her.”

There was another awkward moment in which Joe and he exchanged an uneasy glance, but it was quickly broken when their visitor moved from the living room into the dim bedroom.

Without waiting to be asked, Grace crossed towards the bed, with Methos trailing in her wake like Mary’s little lamb and Joe moving at a much slower pace behind them. He knew nothing more could be done for Duncan medically than he’d already tried, but it never hurt to get a second opinion.

To his surprise, Grace stopped before reaching the bed. After a quick glance over her shoulder, as if to judge whether or not Joe was within hearing range, she softly whispered, “Your friend…how much does he know about us?”

“Everything there is to know,” Methos answered honestly. “Joe’s been Mac’s friend longer than I have.”

“So we can speak freely in front of him then?” Grace checked.

“Joe Dawson is entirely trustworthy,” Methos assured.

“But not deaf,” Joe groused as he joined them.

“Or particularly modest,” Methos added, enjoying their old banter. These past eight months of searching had all but killed his humor. It felt good to be able to joke again, if only for the moment.

“But his good looks more than make up for it,” Grace’s smile was charmingly flirtatious as she squarely met Joe’s gaze.

Methos watched his old friend’s salt and pepper eyebrows rise in surprise before a pleased grin broke out across his face. “A woman of taste.”

Together, they entered the sickroom, all traces of laughter vanishing as the dim lighting reminded them all of the sad circumstances that had prompted the beautiful Immortal’s visit.

“Oh, Duncan,” Grace whispered, sinking down to sit on the tiny space at the edge of the mattress beside the motionless Highlander. Her hand rose to push Mac’s ragged, but squeaky clean, bangs back from his forehead. After staring silently down at his face for a few moments, she reached to take MacLeod’s pulse, then pried one of his eyes open when finished, as Methos did at least a dozen times a day. A second later, she fished a small flashlight out of her purse to make a closer examination. Methos watched in silent approval as she moved on to make a thorough, professional check of her patient. “How long has he been like this?”

“We’ve had him back a week,” Methos reported. “There’s been little change. He’s put on a few pounds. He’s moving a bit, but not much. He took the Quickening of the man responsible for this – a four-thousand year old – and it had no effect. I’ve treated him with a series of benzodiazipines…ditto.”

“You’re a doctor?” Grace asked.

“For several hundred years,” Methos replied.

“Did you insert the NG Tube?” Grace questioned, eyeing the thin, orangish plastic tube trailing from MacLeod’s left nostril. 

Methos nodded.

“You managed without an X-Ray to check that you hit the stomach and not the lung?” she seemed impressed – with good reason. Though working with an Immortal patient made the results of a misplaced feeding tube far less lethal, no one wanted to inflict unnecessary pain and discomfort on their patient. The last thing Mac would have needed after all he’d been through was to drown in food.

“I’ve been doing it a long time,” he shrugged. “It’s like riding a bike. Once you learn, you don’t forget.”

“You’re not catheterizing him?” she observed, her surprise evident.

Methos experienced the same uneasiness he’d felt when Joe had asked that question a week ago. “I know it’s a small thing, but…Duncan withdrew from reality to hide from pain. I’ve tried to minimize his discomfort in the hopes that it might speed his return. Since he’s Immortal, there won’t be any tissue degeneration or irritation if I forego the catheter. I…don’t mind changing him. It gives me something to do besides brood.”

She gave a slow nod, then asked, “The benzodiazipines had no effect?”

“None. He’s been comatose for over a week now,” Methos gave the discouraging report.

“Have you tried barbiturates?” she questioned.

“Yesterday. They, too, were useless. He’s impervious to pain, noise, light, and heat,” Methos relayed.

“That’s not good,” Grace said. 

Were the situation not so goddamned serious, her understatement might have made Methos laugh. As it was, he just nodded his assent. 

After a quiet moment, she asked, “What are you going to try next?”

“We were sorta hoping that you’d have some suggestions,” Joe entered the conversation, revealing his true reason for contacting her.

Another man might have been insulted by Dawson’s lack of faith in his abilities, but at this point Methos would accept help from wherever it came.

Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Joe. Your friend here has already done everything I could suggest. This is…a little out of my area of expertise. I mostly work on the research side of medicine these days.”

“Oh,” Joe couldn’t quite hide his disappointment. “I brought you all this way for nothing then. I’m sorry.”

“Hardly for nothing,” Grace corrected. “I can at least help you care for him for a time.”

“Actually, we could use your help with something else as well,” Methos said, finally seeing a way clear of the legal nightmare MacLeod’s sudden reappearance would create were the authorities to discover his return before Methos and Joe reported it. 

“I’ll do anything I can to help Duncan. You need only name what you need done,” Grace instantly assured with an earnestness that made even a pessimist like Methos believe in her.

Liking this woman way too much, Methos briefly detailed the circumstances surrounding MacLeod’s abduction and the means by which they’d gotten him back. He offered her an extremely edited version, skipping over his sexual involvement with Mac and the fact that his friend wouldn’t have been taken at all were it not for his association with Methos.

“I can see where you felt you had to report him missing,” Grace said when he finished, her words reassuring a need inside him that Methos hadn’t even known he felt. “The police surely would have blamed Duncan for his student’s death, otherwise.”

Methos nodded, “Yes, but, now I need to report him found so that he can reclaim his life when he is able, only…”

“Only you were a witness in his abduction investigation, so it would be too suspicious for you to sign the medical report that will document him as unfit for questioning?” Grace suggested.

“Both beautiful and brilliant,” Methos approved.

“I can help with that,” Grace smiled, once she stopped blushing. “My license is current and background unquestionable…thanks to Duncan here, so there shouldn’t be any problems with the authorities.” Her gaze turned back to the Highlander. She had the same crushed expression in her eyes that Amanda had worn every time she tried to call Duncan back to consciousness, like it hurt too much to see Mac this way to stay too long. 

“You must be tired from your trip,” Joe said, seeming to sense her pain. “Can I get you anything?”

“Some coffee, perhaps?” Grace asked. 

“Of course. No,” Dawson said as Methos started for the kitchen, “I’ll get it. How do you like it?”

“Light, with sugar, please. Thank you, Joe.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Dawson assured.

“I’ve never seen him so still,” Grace whispered after another quiet moment of watching MacLeod.

“I know. It takes some getting used to,” Methos agreed. “You knew him well, then?”

From his time with the Watchers, Methos was fully aware of how important Grace Chandell had been to MacLeod a century or so ago, but that type of knowledge wasn’t something a casual friend would know about. For all that Methos knew more about the details of Grace Chandell’s life than she probably did herself, he had to maintain the façade of ignorance. There wouldn’t have been any reason for MacLeod to have done anything but casually mention an ex-lover to a male friend, so to avoid suspicion, Methos had to make small talk about facts he already knew.

“We had our moment,” Grace smiled fondly down at the unconscious Highlander, “and a fine moment it was. But we made better friends than lovers. You know how it goes.”

Methos nodded, pretending not to hear the regret in her voice. He understood precisely what she meant. Duncan MacLeod was a hard man to live with at times, but he was a harder man to lose.

Seeming to force herself out of the shadow that had touched her, Grace’s gaze moved from Mac to him. “Have you known Duncan long?”

“A few years,” Methos answered, moving to check that the IV drip was still working. That put his side to Grace and shielded most of his face. 

“You must be very good friends,” Grace observed.

Methos’ pulse quickened as he once again found himself in one of those awkward situations where he was facing someone who had known and loved MacLeod for centuries. His own claim was so new and tenuous that he didn’t know how to respond to her natural curiosity. He knew Mac preferred honesty, but MacLeod had suffered so much on his behalf that Methos didn’t know if there would still be a _them_ when Duncan was healed, nor did he know how much MacLeod might want him to reveal to her.

He could feel the sweat breaking out on his brow as he gave a nervous nod. She’d been nothing but charming, but still he felt as though he were on trial for something, “Yes. Mac inspires that kind of loyalty in people.”

“Did I say something wrong?” Grace asked a few moments later, genuine regret coloring her attitude.

Methos shook his head, “No. I’m just…it’s been a difficult year, that’s all. I’m not myself. Please forgive me.”

He focused his attention on the IV line in his hands. It was running perfectly fine, but everything inside Methos was still too raw at the moment to meet her gaze straight on. He could feel those deep brown eyes following his every move, observing him with a perspicacity that took centuries to develop.

“I jumped to conclusions before – didn’t I?” Grace asked in a very soft voice after another silence.

Methos couldn’t ignore her as she came forward and put her hand on his arm. It looked so small and pale against his brown Henley.

“There isn’t a _her_ in Duncan’s life now – is there?” she continued. 

His eyes snapped to her face. Was he wearing a sign or something? “How did you…?”

“I know an aching heart when I see one. God knows, I’ve carried one for long enough myself. You’re suffering as much as poor Duncan there. He’s very fortunate to have so good a friend,” Grace offered.

Methos could have drowned in the bottomless wells of compassion that were her eyes. There was no judgment there, no censure at all, just that blanketing warmth and acceptance that seemed to be the bulwark of her character. 

And…he wasn’t worthy of it. He felt like he had that night Duncan had first offered him his love, like he had to show her she was wasting her sympathy on the likes of him. So instead of accepting her words in the spirit they were offered, Methos found himself tightly informing, “I’m not that good a friend. Duncan wouldn’t be lying there if it weren’t for me.”

Her head cocked to the side, her expression remaining its tranquil self as she waited to hear whatever he might say next.

“I wasn’t always a…civilized man,” Methos met her gaze and held it. “I did some horrible things in my younger days and…one of my victims did this to MacLeod to get back at me.”

“We all make mistakes,” Grace answered. 

Her unshaken composure brought MacLeod’s Chronicle to mind. Staring into her gentle brown eyes, Methos was reminded of the passage where Mac’s awestruck Watcher had described the calm with which the Immortal midwife had offered MacLeod her head when they first met. Something in him needed to test how deep that serenity of hers ran. His nerves stretched to the breaking point, he crisply reported, “My mistakes involved the torture and slaughter of innocents.”

Her expression turning very grave, Grace nodded. After a quiet moment, she said, “It’s a heavy burden you carry, then.”

“That’s it?” Methos quizzed, not understanding why he was revealing these things to an absolute stranger. Only, as with Mary Shelly, she possessed an ineffable quality that made him want to be upfront with her, to have her hate or like him for whom he really was and not the role he was playing at the moment.

“I’m not your judge, Adam,” Grace answered, staring deep into his eyes. “I know Duncan well enough to know that you must be a good man now, no matter your past. You wouldn’t be his friend, otherwise. What was done to Duncan was horrible, but it wasn’t your fault.”

“You sound very sure of that,” Methos could barely get the words above a whisper; his throat was so tight.

“Let’s just say that I’m an excellent judge of character,” she gave his hand another squeeze. “I can understand where it would be very easy to feel responsible for what’s happened here. I’ve been there myself. I…there was a man I loved once. Like you, time changed him, only…he went from good to evil.” She was talking about Carlos Sandaras, Methos realized. “After I left him…he stalked me. Eventually, he ended up killing a mortal I’d loved for forty years. In my head, I knew that I couldn’t be held responsible for his crime, but to this day, there’s a part of me that still blames myself. If it hadn’t been for me, Paul would still be alive today.”

“Or he could have died the day you didn’t meet,” Methos quickly countered, falling easily into the kind of debate he had in the philosophy courses he taught, willing to do almost anything to remove the shadows from those lovely eyes. 

“Precisely. No one can accept responsibility for the whims of fortune. This could have happened to Duncan because of one of his own enemies, in which case, you might never have found him,” Grace said. “All that matters is that you got him back alive.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t usually wear my heart on my sleeve like this,” Methos confessed, his gaze drawn irresistibly to the corpse-still figure bundled beneath the green duvet on the bed. His entire life was so tied to that comatose man now that he didn’t have a clue how he could begin to untangle himself if the need arose, if Duncan didn’t recover.

“You spent over eight months searching for and worrying about Duncan. Whose nerves wouldn’t be frazzled after that kind of ordeal?” she dismissed. “Give yourself some time. You need to recover as much as he does.”

More grateful than he could say for this remarkable woman’s kindness and insight, Methos found himself asking a completely ridiculous question, “You think he’ll recover, then?”

She stared down at the pale man under the duvet and tubes. “There’s nothing physically wrong with him. Duncan MacLeod is the strongest man I know. He’ll find his way back.”

“You sound like you really believe that,” Methos said, needing her optimism right now. 

“Despair is easy. Duncan never believed in it. No matter how horrible things were, he was always the one who could find reasons why we had to go on living when everything we loved died around us. He never let me give up on life, not ever. He won’t, either, especially not when he has someone he loves very deeply to live for.”

“You’re making another assumption there,” Methos pointed out, feeling his cheeks warm.

“Am I?” her smile was pure sunlight; it filled the entire room. “He’d be a fool not to…and Duncan is no man’s fool.”

He didn’t need a mirror to know he’d gone as red as Mac usually did. Gods, but she was an incredible woman. 

Methos found himself falling into an older form of address as he replied, “You flatter me mercilessly, my lady.”

“Hardly,” she smiled back, turning a little pink, “Like I said, I’m a good judge of character. Come, tell me your plans and how I can help and…perhaps you could offer me some lunch? It was a long plane ride and I’m famished.”

Methos turned towards the kitchen. “Of course, I’ll…”

“You’ll come and eat,” Joe Dawson said from halfway across the living room. Obviously, they’d caught him on his return trip from the kitchen. He had a steaming coffee mug in hand. Methos could see that there already was a tray of sandwiches sitting on the counter, which was what had taken Joe so long, he realized.

Once they were all sitting around the table with food and drinks sorted out, Methos said, “I think our first order of business should be informing the authorities of Mac’s return.”

“That makes sense,” Joe nodded.

Grace began, “I’ll say he’s been under my care for the past week…”

“No, Lebrun’s no fool. He’ll know you arrived this morning as soon as he checks the airline records. We’ll say we found Mac last night,” Methos said.

“Inspector Lebrun is handling Duncan’s case?” Grace questioned in a worried tone that set Methos’ nerves on edge again.

“Yes. Why? Is there a problem?” Methos asked, for all that her expression made it plain that there was a large problem.

“Inspector Lebrun was the detective assigned to Paul’s murder. I was their main suspect. Lebrun is sure to remember me.”

“Great,” Joe sighed.

“No, that could still work in our favor,” Methos said.

“Huh?” Joe asked while Grace simply stared the same question at him.

“If Lebrun knows Mac has a friend who is a physician, it mightn’t seem as strange to him that MacLeod is being cared for here at the barge, instead of in hospital,” Methos explained.

“That does make sense,” Grace said.

“After we get the legalities worked out, I want to move MacLeod out to the country, to make him less of a target,” Methos informed. “I was wondering if I might impose upon you to stay here with Joe and Duncan while I make the necessary arrangements? I might be gone as long as four days. You needn’t worry about defending Mac. Joe is more than capable of handling that, but…I’d like him forewarned if one of us comes hunting.”

“Of course. I can stay as long as you need me to,” Grace instantly assured.

“Thanks,” both Joe and he acknowledged at once, breaking everybody into the much-needed relief of a laugh.

“We better get our ducks in a row if we’re gonna be dealin’ with Lebrun any time soon,” Joe warned once they’d calmed.

Munching on his ham and cheese sandwich, Methos nodded, his mind frantically working out what he hoped would be an unflawed cover story.

************************

“You expect me to believe this dribble?” Inspector Lebrun demanded, his long, slender face taut with anger. In his deep blue suit and long black trench coat, which was still wet from the rain, the lanky detective seemed to fill even the cavernous barge’s living room.

Lebrun’s reaction was about what Methos had expected it to be. The Inspector was as skeptical of their story as any good cop would be.

When there was no reply to his rhetorical question, Lebrun repeated the facts as Methos had reported them, “After abducting MacLeod and holding him at some undisclosed location for nearly nine months, his captors simply decided to dump him on the dock in front of the barge again – with no ransom being paid?”

“We found him out there the night before last,” Methos reported.

“And instead of immediately bringing your comatose friend to the nearest hospital, you called Ms. Chandell and asked her to fly in from the States to treat him?” Lebrun questioned what Methos knew to be the weakest link in their already incredibly shaky fabrication.

“I’ve had some medical experience,” Methos explained, calling on five millennia of acting experience to pull this lie off. Lebrun’s expression made it plain that he knew this tale for the BS it was. Methos just had to make certain that there were no obvious holes in his end of the fantasy. So long as their cover story held together, the good Inspector would have no choice but to accept it. “His pulse was strong. There were no signs of trauma to the head or concussion. I could tell MacLeod wasn’t in mortal danger-” 

“He was only unconscious and completely unresponsive to outside stimuli,” Lebrun sneered. “Monsieur, where I come from, comatose people are hospitalized.”

Methos nodded. “Under other circumstances, I would have done so immediately, but…I wasn’t certain that a hospital would be able to provide adequate security for him right now. I was afraid his kidnappers would….”

“Change their minds and snatch him back again?” Lebrun asked, obviously not even trying to keep the sarcasm out of his tone.

“Inspector, please, I appreciate that this is difficult for you, but--” Grace attempted to add her sense of calm to the tense scene in the barge’s living room. Methos was just grateful they’d gotten the detective out of the bedroom. If Lebrun had poked the unconscious MacLeod one more time, Methos would have ripped his arm off.

“Difficult? Madame, I am standing here on this boat with four people, all of whom have been material witnesses in homicides, two of whom were investigated as suspects in those killings. The tale I am being told wouldn’t satisfy a rookie on his first day on the job. Do you seriously expect me to believe that these kidnappers just got tired of holding MacLeod and dumped him on his doorstep again, without ever making so much as a ransom demand? You may as well tell me that he was abducted by aliens, Madame. That at least would make some sense.”

Joe’s sigh filled the room. “What do you want us to say, Inspector?”

“The truth might be novel,” Lebrun shot back.

Stamping down on his temper, Methos tried again, “Those are the facts. We can’t change them just because we don’t understand them.”

“Very well. I have your statements. I would appreciate it if you would inform me when Monsieur MacLeod is no longer under his doctor’s care. Monsieurs Dawson and Pierson, would you be so kind as to answer one question before I leave?” Lebrun asked.

Sensing a trap, Methos asked, “What would that be, Inspector?”

“Where were you both on the night of October 31st?” Lebrun quizzed with the intensity of Hercule Pirot in a drawing room murder mystery. The set was certainly set for that type of melodramatic denouement.

Methos tried to tell himself that the shocked silence that followed wasn’t nearly as guilt-ridden as it sounded to him.

“We were both here on the barge. Joe brought dinner over from our friend Maurice’s restaurant. We ate together here and Joe spent the night. Why do you ask?” Methos asked.

Lebrun turned to Joe, “I suppose you can confirm that?”

“Of course I can confirm it,” Joe insisted, sounding for all the world as though it were true. “We were here all night.”

“And you never left the premises?” Lebrun quizzed.

Methos knew that the Paris police had stopped watching the dock three weeks after MacLeod’s abduction. Neither of the two ships that were moored next to Mac’s barge had had cars in front of them when Methos had left to face Longford on Samhain night. Figuring that 

Lebrun was just fishing for information, he took a chance that there were no witnesses to either their departure or return on that fateful night and confirmed Joe’s lie, “Not until the following morning. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. The Aronville police just have a headless corpse on their hands. It’s strange that Duncan MacLeod should resurface at the same time we encounter another of these bizarre murders. The coincidence is rather astonishing -- wouldn’t you agree?” Lebrun quizzed, the hardness in his eyes telling Methos how very frustrating this entire situation was for him. The detective obviously had faultless cop instincts. Lebrun knew they were guilty as hell. He just didn’t have the wherewithal to prove it. Fortunately for them all, the Inspector’s sense of personal honor wouldn’t allow him to work outside the law.

“I’m afraid I fail to see the connection,” Methos answered in his calmest, most inscrutable player’s voice. 

“Why did I just know you were going to say that?” Lebrun said. “The police are not fools, monsieur. Be warned, I am watching you all. I don’t know what you’re involved in, but it reeks to high heaven. We might not have enough evidence to indict at this time, but there will be no more beheadings on my watch. I promise you that.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Methos said with unforced sincerity. “You may not believe this, but we do appreciate all the time and effort you have put into this case, Inspector. And I really do wish we had something more useful to tell you.”

“No doubt,” Lebrun replied, totally unappeased. “If you wish to be helpful, you will contact me when Duncan MacLeod recovers. Until then…I will be watching, have no doubt. Adieu.”

With a curt nod to them all, Lebrun stalked out of the barge.

“Whew, that went well,” Joe said, his sarcasm giving Methos’ a run for its money.

“It actually did. No one ended up behind bars,” Methos answered, stepping to the closest starboard porthole to assure himself that the detective had actually left. He squashed his nose up against the cold glass, breathing in the dirt on the metla plate that held the thick glass in place as his gaze followed the tall police officer’s departure.

“The poor man was beside himself,” Grace commented from her seat on the couch.

“He’s a good cop. He knows a lie when he hears it,” Methos said, returning to the living room once the white police car pulled away.

“That’s one of the hardest parts of being Immortal,” Grace said once Methos returned to lean with his back to the hearth, his chilled body soaking up the fire’s heat, “having to lie to good men.”

“The alternative is too dangerous,” Methos reminded.

“Yes, but…that doesn’t make it any easier,” she said.

“You must be tired,” Joe said, reading Methos’ mind. More than tired, their guest looked worn out.

“It’s been a long two days,” Grace deferred.

“How ‘bout I get you set up in the guest room?” Joe offered. “You want give me a hand moving the stuff off the bed, Adam?”

“Sure,” Methos agreed, though he had no idea where they were going to store everything. Myrddid’s things were now timesharing the space with Tessa’s artwork.

“Will you be leaving tomorrow to make your arrangements to move Duncan?” Grace asked Methos before he and Joe left the room.

“If you don’t mind,” Methos answered. “I’ll be gone as briefly as possible.”

“No rush. I’m certain Joe and I can handle things for a couple of days,” Grace assured.

“Thank you…for everything,” Methos acknowledged.

“Yeah…we never would have been able to pull it off with Lebrun without your help,” Joe added.

“I’m sure you would have thought of something. Come, I’ll help you get the room ready,” Grace offered.

His spirits buoyed by her unfaltering optimism, Methos led the way to the spare room that had once been Ritchie Ryan’s.

*************************


	8. Redemption

“Be honest, you’re takin’ us out to the deep weeds to kill us all – aren’t you?” Joe Dawson asked from the ambulette’s passenger seat six hours into their trip, sounding like Ritchie Ryan at his whiniest.

In the driver’s seat, Methos smiled, while Grace erupted into melodic laughter from the back where she sat beside Duncan’s stretcher. Methos couldn’t really blame Joe. This was the first thing resembling a complaint in their all day road trip. The rest stops had helped, but everyone was getting tired.

“Actually, our destination is just around the next bend,” Methos assured.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Joe’s skeptical gaze eyeing the pine forest growing on both sides of the road.

“You would know this because…? It’s the forest primeval out there,” Joe announced, his tone eliciting another giggle from the back.

“Well, at least I can breathe again,” Grace added. “Those turns on that last cliff were unbelievable.”

“But beautiful,” Joe said, still seeming more than a little awed. “I can’t remember the last time I saw anything that spectacular.”

“Mont Blanc has been a tourist attraction for centuries,” Grace said. “There used to be a pagan temple up there dedicated to Jupiter. It’s said that St. Bernard fought a battle there to drive the pagan forces out.”

“Did he?” Joe asked, craning his neck around to see Grace, who was looking as lovely as the surrounding Alps in her sky blue blouse and black jeans.

Joe wasn’t looking too bad himself, Methos realized, unable to recall the last time Dawson had paid such detail to his wardrobe. In his blue jeans, white turtleneck and black wool cardigan, Joe looked very sharp indeed.

“That’s a little before my time, I’m afraid,” Grace laughed.

In his peripheral vision, Methos saw Joe turn to him, but the Watcher didn’t say anything. Methos appreciated his friend’s discretion. To Grace, he was still just Adam Pierson. Though Methos liked and respected her, he hadn’t confided his true age or identity to her. He’d prefer to keep it that way for a while. 

Everyone seemed elated just to be out of the barge, except Duncan, of course, who was as oblivious as ever. But Methos was hopeful. The infectious good humor of his two conscious companions had buoyed his own spirits immensely. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Joe smile so much. Considering the fact that MacLeod had yet to open his eyes, Methos had to attribute the change in Joe to their lovely visitor. Not that he could fault Joe. Three days alone in Grace Chandell’s company would be more than enough to cure what ailed any red-blooded man.

“Ah, here we are. Just as promised,” Methos announced as they slowly circumnavigated another hairpin turn and the road opened up before them. To the right, the wild mountain vista still seemed to range into white-capped infinity, their destination sitting in subdued, if deteriorating glory in a gentle valley to the left of the road.

“This is where we’re staying?” Joe didn’t quite manage to keep his incredulity from flavoring his tone. “It’s…it’s a cemetery.”

Methos stared at the crumbling white, gray and black granite and marble vaults, crosses, statues, and tombstones that were all that were visible from the road. He could see where Joe would easily get that impression. The gray November twilight wasn’t helping the atmosphere any. All that was needed was a ghostly specter passing through the ruins to make the place the perfect site for a horror movie.

“Actually, I think it’s, I mean, I think it was…a monastery,” Grace said, confusion more than disappointment in her attitude.

“We’re staying in a monastery?” Joe sounded completely dejected.

“It hasn’t been lived in since the 13th Century, I think,” Grace added, her uncertainty clear.

“They built St. Nicholas Church in Combloux in 1400 and closed this place down then,” Methos said. “It’s been privately owned ever since,” he didn’t add _by himself_. Taking his gaze from the road for a second he met Joe’s disillusioned hazel eyes and offered, “Darius was stationed here during the late 13th Century.” 

“Yeah?” that piqued Joe’s interest.

“You knew Darius, too?” Grace questioned, her hushed tone revealing that the monk’s loss was still as painful to her as it was to MacLeod.

“Not personally,” Joe answered, sparing Methos the necessity of lying or bringing up things best left buried. “Mac was very close to him. He still misses him.”

“We all do,” Grace said. “Darius was…very special. When Mac called to say he was gone, I couldn’t believe it. It makes you wonder what the world is coming to when a priest isn’t safe in a church. Mac never did explain why Darius’ killer chose to behead him. It seems such a strange method for a mortal to use these days.”

Joe and he exchanged a quick, nervous glance as Methos pulled the ambulette through the gothic stone gates and started up the unpaved drive. Joe clammed up immediately, obviously unable to lie to someone he was starting to have feelings for.

Taking a deep breath, Methos covered with, “Perhaps Duncan didn’t know the details himself…or perhaps they were too painful to share.”

There, that wasn’t a complete lie. Methos had never had any true affection for the man who had murdered one of his closest friends, but when he’d heard about how Horton had executed Darius on St. Julien’s altar, his rage had almost brought Death out for a visit.

“Yes, of course. Some things are better left unspoken,” Grace agreed.

“Not to be too critical here,” Joe said, changing the subject as the ambulette turned down the road towards what had once been the monastery chapel, “but that place doesn’t have a roof.”

Methos looked at the moss and lichen spotted, gray stone edifice that had prompted Joe’s words, his smile growing as he took in the unprepossessing picture it painted. He’d known and loved this place when it had been one of the few centers of literacy in France, when the monastery teemed with brothers and ran hot with ecclesiastical and philosophical debates. Seeing it now with its crashed in roof, glassless windows and crumbling walls was like looking at the denuded corpse of a friend; it hurt that much, even though he’d spent the past three days here overseeing the modifications to their new living quarters. But even in the last sad stages of its existence, the monastery was still offering Methos sanctuary when it was most needed.

“We’re staying behind the original building,” Methos explained, making the turn that led to the back of the chapel.

“Wow,” Joe remarked as they rounded final bend and the cottage nested in the shadows of the hulking ruin came into view. “You’d never see this from the road.”

“I think it was intentionally built that way,” Grace said, leaning over the unconscious Highlander to study the whitewashed cottage through the ambulette’s side window. “Look at how all the windows in the back of the house face the chapel’s remaining wall and the mountains behind.”

“It looks like there’s a courtyard or something between them,” Joe added, peering curiously at the twilit structures.

“A small garden, actually,” Methos informed, turning off the engine. The hedgerow at the back of the garden effectively cut off any light for the cottage that the collapsing abbey wall might reveal.

For a long moment, Methos just sat there staring at the place through the windshield, memories of the summer he’d brought Byron here filtering through his thoughts. The cottage had been new and just one breath away from the ideal back then. The thickets of rose bushes that had run wild in the intervening decades had been carefully tended and heavy with blossoms that year. Byron had written a poem to one of the blooms on the tangle to his left after they’d made love in the grass beneath it one dew soaked morning. The cottage’s wattle and daub whitewashed walls hadn’t been overgrown with vines back then. Nor had the grass been brown and dead underfoot. Methos knew that all these things would change in time as soon as the wheel of the seasons turned again. He just wished that he could have brought Mac here when it looked its loveliest, not when winter was closing in around them and the ambiance of the dying abbey overshadowed everything. But then, Methos’ life had rarely been as he wished it. When he really thought back on the idyllic summer he’d spent here with Lord Byron, he could remember that Byron had actually been at his cruelest that year. Memory and time just had a way of airbrushing out the unpleasant reality wrinkles.

“You okay?” 

Realizing that Joe’s question was addressed to him, Methos started out of his reverie. 

“I’m fine, just tired,” Methos lied, the ghosts outside almost as disturbing as the corporeal one in the back of the vehicle. “Let’s get Duncan settled, then I’ll show you your rooms.”

“You did all this in three _days_?” Joe marveled as he stared around at the furnishings of the cozy living room that the front door opened onto.

Methos shrugged as he and Grace carefully guided MacLeod’s stretcher over the threshold. “Most of what you see was already here. It was Duncan’s room I had to make arrangements for.”

“It’s so perfect,” Grace said, openly admiring the antique couch, red velvet wingback chairs, mahogany end tables, and sideboard that filled the small area. “It’s like stepping back in time. I haven’t used a lamp like that in eighty years.”

Her pointy little chin gestured towards the hand painted, porcelain oil lamp that had been Methos’ last wife’s pride and joy. Most of the pieces were like that, precious to someone Methos had loved. Throughout the centuries, he’d collected quite a cache of sentimental mementos that were on display up here in the cottage or stored safely in crates in the monk’s cells that catacombed the underground area all around the abbey.

“There is electricity,” Methos said, reading Joe’s uneasiness at the ‘stepping back in time’ comment. “We’ve got a generator out back. There isn’t any television or radio reception, I’m afraid. And the mountains block most cellphone service.”

“Plumbing?” Joe questioned, looking as though he expected the worst.

“Indoor. The water comes from an underground well,” Methos answered.

Grace’s elegant brow crinkled. “Was this the original St. Bernard’s Abbey?”

Methos nodded. He’d never asked her how old she was, but her Chronicles placed her a good hundred years before MacLeod, which was when the Watchers had discovered her. There was no telling her true age without asking her, which he was loath to do. 

“There was something about St. Bernard’s wells that was special – wasn’t there?” Grace asked.

“Not the wells. There are hot springs below the chapel. They were said to be magic,” Methos offered, in the same half-serious tone he’d used to tell MacLeod about the sacred well during the Dark Quickening. That was the problem when dealing with the Mystery. It grew in silence and secrecy. From his recent dabbling into long forgotten arts, Methos could feel the power of this place throbbing under his feet the way most men would feel a subway car rumble by below them; only, he knew that his companions would be completely oblivious to that aspect of St. Bernard’s. Like most of the monks that had lived here, if they felt it at all, it would register as an inexplicable nervousness or uneasiness. Byron had sworn the place haunted his first night here, but the poet had been more sensitive to these things than most people were.

“Something happened to them – didn’t it? That’s why they closed this place, I think,” Grace looked as though she were pulling those facts up from a place not much visited.

Methos knew exactly how she felt. There were whole millennia he tried not to remember. The years that the abbey had been at its height had been some of the darkest Europe had known.

“The wells were used from time immemorial as a source of healing. They were as large and as frequented as the Roman Baths in Bath, England, from 800 A.D. to the mid-1300s. Thousands of people made pilgrimages here every year,” Methos reported, trying to keep the history on an impersonal level, giving no more out than a well-informed tour guide would.

“It was as popular as Lourdes at one point,” Grace added.

“What happened to change that?” Joe asked. “I never heard of this place.”

He could feel Grace’s gaze on him. Their eyes met. The scars from the nightmare that they’d both lived through seeming to reach out and touch each other.

Methos swallowed hard. He didn’t know how to lie in the face of such honesty.

“It’s all right, Adam,” Grace softly assured, reading him far too easily. “Your presence tells me that you’re nowhere near as young as you’d like me to believe.”

The fact that she could sense that told him that Grace Chandell was a lot older than even Watcher Records suspected.

Nodding his acceptance of the inevitable, Methos answered Joe’s question, “The same thing that happened to all of Europe – the Black Death. It hit us here in the spring of 1348. I’d seen plagues before, but never anything like this. A group of Italian pilgrims brought it in with them. One was sick when they arrived. The abbot and I saw him that evening, but by then it was far too late. The sick man’s companions had visited the wells, dined with our order, and toured the abbey by the time we realized there was plague among us. We had an epidemic in three days. Within a week, we had fifty percent fatalities. In early March there were three hundred monks permanently stationed here and facilities for over a hundred guests. On Beltaine I buried the last of my brothers, locked the gates behind me and set off on foot for Paris to warn them. Only…”

“The plague was faster,” Grace completed. “You have no idea what it was like, Joe. The entire world died around every Immortal back then. Once the Black Death hit…we’d be the only ones left alive in an entire village.”

“But only after dying from it ourselves,” Methos added.

“God,” Joe gave a visible shudder and then asked the most natural question. “What would ever make you want to come back here, let alone build a house here?”

Grace answered before Methos even had a chance, “Protection, of course. The abbey is still holy ground. No one driving down the road would ever know this house was here. And the graveyard is nondescript enough not to draw attention. It looks just like a thousand other abandoned cemeteries.”

“And the hot springs are still down there. Most of them dried up about three hundred years ago, but there are still a few running hot. Plus…” since he couldn’t mention how the place thrummed with power, he settled on a lesser truth, “I was happy here once.”

Joe gave a slow nod, seeming to understand all that Methos couldn’t say. In his own way, Dawson lived with loss on a daily basis the same way Immortals did.

“Well,” Joe said, as if sensing Methos’ need to leave the past behind, “why don’t we get Mac settled and see about dinner? There are grocery stores up here – aren’t there?”

Methos grinned, loving the man for his prosaic streak. “Yes, Joe. There are several just outside Combloux. That’s only about a half hour from here. But you needn’t worry about that tonight. I stocked up the other day. We have a full larder…and an impressive bar.”

Methos nodded to the liquor cabinet, which shared a wall with the ornately carved breakfront.

“How ‘bout I get us a drink while you guys get Mac comfortable?” Joe suggested. Dawson was wonderful when it came to helping out in the sick room, but had learned to steer clear of the room when Grace and Methos were consulting. Not that Methos could blame him. There was nothing like listening to two doctors debate the best method of treatment for a man who had no physiological reason to be comatose. 

“Thanks, Joe.” Methos focused on Grace at the other end of the stretcher and said, “Mac’s room is over this way. Joe, if you need the facilities the bathroom is the door to the left of the kitchen. There’s only the one, I’m afraid, so we’ll have to share.”

“No problem,” Joe assured. “We’ve been fine on the barge so far.”

“Yes, well, the barge is somewhat larger than the cottage, unfortunately,” Methos warned.

“It’s smaller than the barge’s?” Joe asked.

“Considerably,” Methos answered.

“Well, I’m all for togetherness,” Dawson grinned.

“That’s good, because we’re going to have a hell of a lot of it here,” Methos found a smile.

“It’s bigger than most of the places I lived before this century,” Grace added. “Most of the cottages I’ve lived in were a single room. This is cozy, but not claustrophobic.”

Cheered by his companions’ graciousness, Methos lifted an eyebrow and gave a droll, “We’ll give it a week – shall we?”

“Optimist,” Joe sassed. “Go get Mac settled down and I’ll get us that drink.”

“Thanks, Joe,” Methos smiled, grateful for so much more than the drink.

Taking the head of the stretcher and walking backwards, Methos led the gurney to the tiny hall to the right of the living room that three doors opened onto. None of the windows in this part of the house could be seen from the road. If one could ignore the ruined abbey right out back, the bedroom windows had a breathtaking view of the Alps behind the collapsing chapel.

“I set this one up as Mac’s,” he told Grace as he opened the nearest door and turned on the overhead light.

The four-poster bed that had occupied the majority of the compact room before the modern hospital bed had been added stood on its side at the far end of the room. The old mahogany night table, doily-draped dresser with its ornate chamber pot and pitcher, hand-woven rug and paintings were the same as they’d been for the past two-hundred years or so. The only new items were the medical supplies stacked on and beside the dresser, a small cot in the corner that any of the monks who’d inhabited St. Bernard’s would have been right at home on, the hospital bed and hospital table beside it.

“This is wonderful. You’ve thought of everything,” Grace approved as she took in his arrangements. “Duncan should be very comfortable here.”

“I hope so,” he said, looking around the almost claustrophobically small space and thinking that Mac would hate it. It was so different from the airy, open places Mac chose to live that he really had trouble seeing MacLeod liking this tiny cottage much, but it was the safest place he could think of on such short notice. Mac’s island in the States might have been more comfortable for them all with its huge bedrooms and vast living room, but the logistics of transporting a comatose Immortal overseas had thwarted him. He’d even been leery of flying Mac here, which would have been a lot more comfortable for them all than their all day trek across France. But Methos had wanted to draw the least attention as possible to their movements. While it would have been far more convenient to fly Mac to Geneva and make the hour drive to the abbey from there, they would have left a paper trail that even the stupidest headhunter could follow. Their rented ambulette was a much better idea. Methos would simply drive it back tomorrow, pay the king’s ransom in mileage fees and return with his Land Rover the next day.

“Shall we get him into bed?” Grace suggested.

Methos quickly moved the IV, to which Mac was still hooked up, between the bed and stretcher, pulled back the duvet, checked to make sure that the pressure cushion was properly placed, and plumped the pillows.

“On three,” he said, once he’d freed Mac of the stretcher’s safety restraints. The Highlander was still curled on his side in as much of a fetal position as he’d been able to maintain on the narrow stretcher, so moving him was as awkward as ever.

Together they lifted the Highlander onto the bed, making sure to set him on his opposite side to ease the pressure and keep the bedsores at bay as long as possible.

“Let me help you with that,” Grace offered as Methos retrieved a fresh diaper from the bag in the corner. He’d changed Mac at the last rest stop while the others went in to get lunch, but that had been almost three hours ago.

“That’s okay. I’ll do it,” he snapped. Belatedly realizing that his tone mightn’t have been the kindest, Methos quickly explained, “I’ve missed him the last few days.”

Understatement of the century. He’d gone back to his old pattern of not being able to sleep at all at night, which made no sense, considering that MacLeod had only been back at the barge for a week before Methos had left for the abbey. Not that you could really call Mac’s present state back, Methos amended.

“That’s okay,” Grace assured, the concerned expression in her eyes seeming to say that she really did know what he was going through. “Why don’t I go get dinner started?”

He gave her a grateful, tired smile and nodded. “There’s a tray of frozen vegetarian lasagna in the bottom of the refrigerator and some salad fixings.”

“I’ll get right on it,” she smiled and left.

Feeling guilty about his short temper, Methos quickly dealt with the diaper situation. Once he had Mac clean and fresh again, he wiped his hands with one of the wipes and disposed the soiled diaper in the room’s trashcan. Which brought another issue to mind. He hadn’t really thought about trash. The last time he’d lived here for any length of time, all their refuse had been biodegradable. 

Adding the new problem to his ever-growing list of things to be dealt with, Methos gazed down at the unconscious man curled on his side in the slightly elevated hospital bed. The steady feedings of the last five days had done Mac a world of good. His face had filled out again. He was still pale, but nowhere near the ghostly pallor he’d had that first morning. If it weren’t for the bad haircut and the feeding tube trailing from his left nostril, Methos would almost have believed his lover to be simply sleeping, so peaceful and handsome did MacLeod look lying there. The dark fan of Mac’s eyelashes against his cheekbones stirred such a fierce protective impulse in Methos that he hardly recognized himself.

If only Mac would just wake up….

Every time he looked at Mac lying there, the pain and guilt stabbed into him anew. His heart ached to see Duncan so motionless. But Methos had endured levels of pain that would have destroyed most men – be they mortal or Immortal. He could bear this. Seeing Mac broken was intensely hurtful, but not nearly as difficult as what Mac had suffered to put him in this state. With all the horrors Methos had survived over the last five millennia, he’d been fortunate. He’d never been buried alive like MacLeod had, at least, not for as long as Mac had spent entombed. It had taken time to put Mac in this state, and it would take time to heal him from it, Methos reminded himself. He knew that all he needed to do was be patient, but it was so hard watching his lover sleep the sleep of the dead, with no clue as to when Mac might recover. The word if echoed through his mind like the voices of the monks who’d sung here would sometimes drift through the shattered abbey outside when the wind was high and the power right, but there was no _if_ in Methos’ reality, not where Duncan’s recovery was concerned.

On some level, Methos recognized that he had snapped, that his own sanity was as problematical as Mac’s recovery, but…Duncan had promised him on one of the most significant nights of Methos’ life that he wouldn’t leave Methos until there was no hope left for them. The one thing Methos had always believed was that while there was life, there was hope. There was still life here, and, therefore, hope. So as long as MacLeod kept his head on his shoulders, Methos would keep his faith in Mac’s recovery. He had to. The alternative was simply too unbearable to consider.

Taking heart from the difference between this tranquil sleeper and the tortured wreck they’d rescued from Longford’s clutches on Samhain night, Methos found a genuine smile and gently said, “I know you’re busy sleeping now, Mac, but we’ve really got to do your massage and exercises now. Tomorrow morning, I’ve got something really special to show you – some hot springs down in the basement. Maybe you’ll want to open your eyes and enjoy them. They’re not as extensive as the Roman Baths in England, but they are quite beautiful in their own way, if I do say so myself. If you open your eyes tomorrow, I’ll tell you how I built them. We’ve got our own entrance to the springs, so we needn’t ever go outside. It’s something I think you’ll really enjoy seeing.”

Affecting not to notice his companion’s uninterrupted silence, Methos slipped the duvet off Mac, undid the ties of his light blue hospital gown, reached for the balsam-scented body oil that he’d left on the hospital table for just this purpose and gently started to work at the rock hard, atrophied muscles that kept his unconscious friend in this curled up position. Until those muscles unclenched and healed, it was probably better that Mac remained oblivious. The stretching was going to be a slow, painful and arduous process – on both of them. 

Continuing to offer soft encouragement, interspersed with snippets about the hot springs downstairs, Methos fell into the motions that were to become the pattern of their lives as he manipulated first the stony muscles of Mac’s back and then his companion’s limbs in turn. Though some might find the effort grueling, Methos was content simply to have Duncan here and breathing. And, one important thing hadn’t changed. He still loved touching Mac’s skin. Just feeling the living heat of his friend in that silky soft glide of flesh was as therapeutic to Methos’ stressed nerves as it was to MacLeod’s strained body. Sinking into an almost meditative state, Methos let his fingers do the kind of healing bodywork he hadn’t really practiced since his days with Myrddid, when intent was more important than actual skill. He knew if he just kept this up and got through to Mac wherever the Highlander was hiding, that Mac would open his eyes and their life would return to normal…providing MacLeod could ever forgive him for what he’d suffered on Methos’ behalf.

Choosing not to dwell on that daunting proviso, Methos concentrated on simply seeing Mac open his eyes.

************************

Mac didn’t open his eyes the next day when introduced to the hot springs in the abbey basement, nor any of the days after that. His body did heal, though. Between Methos’ ministrations, the spring water’s relaxing heat and the natural curative powers of Immortality, MacLeod’s recovery was nothing short of miraculous. Had a mortal been afflicted with a similar state of atrophy, it would have been months or even years before the damage was rectified. But within two weeks, Methos had Mac’s back muscles relaxed and stretched to the point where the Highlander could once again lie flat on his back. It was a small victory, but Methos was taking his joy where he could.

The work was exhausting, though, both physically and emotionally. With every gain he made in returning Mac’s body to its former splendor, Methos couldn’t help but pray that Mac would wake up from his sleep, which, of course, he never did. Each day the disappointment was sharper and harder to handle. Yet, Methos kept the massage therapy up even when he knew that the physical damage was healed. He kept hoping that the gentleness of the touches might eventually filter down to wherever Mac was hiding.

Two and a half weeks after their arrival, the pattern of Methos’ days was pretty well set. He slept on the cot in the corner of Duncan’s room. He’d wake up, change, wash, shave and feed Mac, see to his own ablutions and breakfast, then begin the day’s worth of physical therapy that was getting Mac’s body back in shape, even if it were doing nothing to improve MacLeod’s mental recovery.

This morning he entered their room dripping wet from the shower, shaking his head as he caught sight of the pile of clothing he’d forgotten to bring into the bathroom with him. 

“I’m really losing it, Mac. Forgetting everything these days. Not just the clothes, either. I looked at the calendar while in the kitchen this morning. Did you know that tonight is the anniversary of our first night together? I’m afraid I neglected to get you anything. We’ll celebrate when you’re more yourself – all right?” he gave a soft smile to his oblivious lover and crossed to the clothes on the bed, freezing in place as an Immortal signature registered in a direction he wasn’t expecting to feel anyone. His racing heart calmed as he recognized Grace’s presence. It seemed to be coming from outside, in the garden, of all places. What she was doing out there in the cold and newly fallen snow was beyond him.

A second later, Methos heard her softly call, “Joe, are you out here?”

“Yeah,” Dawson’s unmistakable Chicago accent answered.

Their voices were muted by distance, but perfectly audible in the winter stillness. Any other time of the year the birdsongs and the sound of the rushing brook out back would have made it impossible to hear a private conversation from that far away, but with the stream frozen and the birds gone, they might just as well have been in the next room.

Methos wondered if he should somehow announce his presence, for he was eavesdropping. Grace would know that there was an Immortal present, but she’d probably dismiss it as Duncan since she was outside Mac’s bedroom window and she had seen Methos enter the bathroom less than five minutes ago. He knew that listening in was reprehensible. Only, the cottage was so small that there really wasn’t anyplace to have private conversation, except outside. If he removed that option, the tension would be unrelenting. He decided his best bet was to practice the selective deafness that anyone prior to this century had learned to cultivate when living in conditions where there sometimes wasn’t even a private place to have sex.

They’d all been giving each other space because it was nerve-wracking to be trapped in this tiny place with no diversions. Methos had picked up Joe’s guitars and amp when he’d returned the ambulette, so Dawson had been entertaining them most every night with live music, but the days and isolation were beginning to take their toll, especially upon Joe who’d never lived in an age without radio and television.

There was a quiet, then Methos heard Grace ask, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah…no,” Joe answered. “It’s been over three weeks. There’s been no change at all. I was sure….”

“That Duncan would be better by now?” Grace supplied.

“Yeah.”

Sighing, Methos started to towel off the water dotting his skin, wishing there were a way to block out the conversation outside. No one knew better than him how depressing this was.

“It’s going to take time for him to heal,” Grace reminded.

“You really believe he’s gonna get better?” Joe demanded in that forthright manner that endeared him to as many hearts as it alienated.

Grace answered, “Adam believes it. Maybe we need to believe it for his sake.”

Another optimist bites the dust, Methos thought.

“I know. I’m tryin’, but…” Methos had rarely heard so much emotion in Joe’s voice. It was so gruff, Methos could barely understand the words.

“It hurts to see Mac this way. I know,” Grace said. “You love them both very much. This has been as hard on you as Adam. When Duncan was missing, was there anyone you could talk to about any of this, Joe?”

“What?” Joe asked.

“Adam told me how you took care of him, how you used to come over every day and bully him into eating and trying to rest. Was there anyone who took care of you that way?” she questioned.

Methos froze in the act of reaching for his underwear, hating the fact that he’d never thought of that himself. Joe had given him so much, held him together those eight months that Mac had been missing. But Joe had suffered a double loss that fateful Valentine night Mac had been abducted. Not only had MacLeod vanished from his life, but Ritchie Ryan had been killed as well. Methos had been so absorbed in Mac’s ordeal and recuperation that he’d never really addressed the pain Joe must be experiencing. He’d repeatedly thanked their friend for his stalwart devotion and tried to show Joe on a daily basis how grateful he was for his continued support, but Methos had never appreciated how much just being here must hurt Joe. Methos was so absorbed with Duncan that he knew he rarely saw anything else these days. It must be hell on both Joe and Grace to be here.

The silence that followed Grace’s question seemed endless. Finally, Joe tried to shrug it off with, “I wasn’t the one whose life was ripped apart.”

“No? You told me how long you’ve been friends with them both. I’ve seen you with Duncan, how gentle and caring you are. This has to have ripped you apart the same way it has Adam,” she pointed out.

“Why are you sayin’ these things?” Joe asked, sounding backed into a corner. Methos’ heart ached for the pain in that familiar voice.

“Because you don’t have to pretend it doesn’t hurt. Not with me, and certainly not with Adam,” she assured, saying the things Methos wished he’d had the sense to say months ago. Instead, he’d just leaned on Joe’s strength, never thinking what it must have cost his friend. There was a time when Methos’ ability to accept his own shortcomings had been limitless, but right now his guilt was such that he seriously didn’t think he could handle a single more regret.

“Adam’s got enough on his plate without worryin’ ‘bout me,” Joe dismissed, making Methos cringe inside.

“So who worries about Joe Dawson?” Grace gently challenged. Methos didn’t know if she’d known Freud, but she certainly had Sean Byrnes’ touch when it came to healing a troubled soul.

“Look, I’m fine. All right?” Joe insisted, sounding anything but fine. “I just…”

“Yes?” Grace prompted.

“I just want him to get better,” Joe’s words came out in a strangled rush. “I just want them to be happy. I want…oh, Christ…”

Methos squeezed his eyes shut at the unmistakable sounds of a strong man breaking that followed. Even though he knew that Joe needed the release, it was hard to listen to. After a moment, the quality of the sounds changed, becoming more muffled, as if Joe had buried his face in something soft…like Grace’s shoulder. Methos knew the caring physician well enough to know that she could never stand witness to such grief without offering some form of comfort. And he loved her for it very much at that moment, for being able to provide Joe with a solace that present social convention wouldn’t allow Dawson to seek with a male friend.

The sounds seemed to go on forever before Methos finally heard Joe give a near inaudible, shamed-sounding, “I’m sorry, Grace. I don’t usually lose it like that.” 

“Everybody loses it occasionally, Joe. And there’s nothing to be sorry for. You did the same for me that day on the barge, remember?” Grace questioned, referring to an incident Methos had no knowledge of.

“Yeah, but that was different,” Joe said.

“How? I was upset and over-tired, the same as you. When’s the last time you slept through the whole night, Joe?” she asked.

Even from where Methos listened, he could hear the snort Joe gave to that. “1968?” Joe’s joke fell flat.

“You need to relax. Your muscles are as hard as a rock,” Grace softly observed.

“Yeah, well…”

“Look, Adam usually gives Duncan his physical therapy in their room until almost noon. Why don’t you and I go down to those hot springs and relax for a while. I’ll give you a massage and…what?” she asked after a moment, sounding disappointed.

“Thanks, Grace, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think it’s such a good idea,” Joe denied.

“Why ever not?”

“It just isn’t – okay?” Joe insisted in a tone Methos had never heard before. Joe Dawson was one of the strongest men Methos had ever met in his life. He wasn’t accustomed to hearing fear in his voice, but that’s what it was.

“No, it’s not okay,” Grace firmly corrected. “This hasn’t been easy on anyone here. I’d like to know why you won’t take some time off with me just to relax. Was it something I said or did?”

“God, no, Grace,” Joe instantly assured, sounding shocked by the idea. “It’s not you. You’ve been great. It’s all me – okay?”

“I’d still like an explanation,” Grace said, in a tone that somehow managed to be firm and non-threatening at the same time.

A pause followed, then Joe seemed to rally, answering with his normal joking ease, which was heart-breaking, considering the content of his words, “Let’s say my dance card hasn’t been as full as I’d like for the past three decades or so. It’s been…hell…it’s been forever since I was…close to a beautiful woman. You give me that massage you’re talkin’ about and I’ll go off like a teenager and embarrass us both.”

Methos held his breath, flinching at how naked Joe had left himself. He liked Grace a lot, but if she didn’t find a diplomatic way out of this and hurt Joe now, he was going to go out there and take her head, holy ground or no holy ground.

Her reply came with surprising swiftness and innate graciousness, “I don’t embarrass easy, Joe.”

Gods, she wasn’t looking for a way out…Methos almost went weak with relief. He’d seen how smitten Joe was with her – who wouldn’t be? – but he hadn’t realized that the feelings were mutual.

“Well, I do,” Joe laid it on the line. “I know you mean well, Grace, but resisting that kinda temptation just isn’t relaxing.”

“Who said anything about resisting temptation?” Grace demanded, the first hint of something like sharpness entering her tone. Apparently, Dawson wasn’t the only one capable of telling it like it was. “I’m not playing games with you here or teasing you. I like you, Joe Dawson – a lot. I’m over seven-hundred years old. I’m old enough to know what I want when I see it.”

The only sound in the silence that followed was Duncan’s steady breathing on the bed behind Methos. 

Finally, Grace asked, “Why can’t you believe that?”

“You…you’re exquisite. I…I’m not the kinda guy a woman like you goes for.”

“What kind of man would that be?” Grace sounded truly angry now.

“Someone…worthy of you. Someone as beautiful, bright and talented as yourself. Someone like Mac. I know that you and MacLeod were lovers. I’m no Duncan MacLeod, Grace. I’m just a tavern-keeper from Seacouver who’s gettin’ old way too fast,” Joe sounded like each and every one of those lines had stabbed him like a knife, like maybe they were things he’d been telling himself since he’d first met Grace. Methos was intimately acquainted with the feelings that had prompted Joe’s denial. He’d lived with them from the day he’d first laid eyes on Duncan MacLeod.

“Joe, it’s been over forty-five years since I…found someone I could truly care for. I have found a man who is beautiful, bright and talented. I’m looking right at him,” Grace argued.

It was a perverse fact of human nature that sometimes the more a person wanted something, the harder they would deny it. After a shocked silence, Joe countered in a strained voice, “Look at me. I’m fifty-seven. I’m already old now. In another ten years….”

“No one knows how long they have, not mortals, not even Immortals,” Grace countered. “Someone could come for my head and I could be dead by nightfall.” 

“Over my dead body,” Joe instantly swore, sounding like he meant it.

“You would die for me, but will not lay with me? This is crazy. You want me as much as I want you.”

“Who wouldn’t want you…you’re…exquisite,” Joe rasped. “You don’t need to be wasting your time with someone like me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grace demanded.

“I know what I am, Grace. Ten or fifteen years ago, there might have been something here worth your time, but now…look at me!”

Grace’s tone changed, becoming softer and more lulling, “I am looking, Joe. I see before me the finest man I’ve met in ages. A man who is strong and brave as a lion, but not afraid to be gentle. A handsome man who has held me up when I cried and made me laugh when I was about to lose hope.” 

And still the man couldn’t see why such qualities would outweigh the superficial issues he was stuck on. If Methos hadn’t fallen so hard for MacLeod when they first met, he might have lost his heart to Joe himself once they’d become closer friends after the Calas business. Dawson’s courage and unwavering loyalty were rare enough in this world. To find them in equal measure with compassion and humor was unheard of. Joe was truly a gift to be cherished…if a person were wise enough to recognize the diamond in the rough before them – which Grace apparently was, if her next comment was anything to judge by. 

“Please…don’t make me beg,” Grace pleaded.

“Why would you want this? I mean…have you any idea what I look like without clothes on? I been here before, Grace. They always swear they can handle it, but the minute my…differences are bared to the light, it’s a whole nother story.”

What it took for his friend to say those words, Methos couldn’t imagine.

He wasn’t even aware that he was holding his breath until he felt it rush out of him when Grace calmly assured, “I can handle it.”

“Wha-what’re you doin’?” Joe nearly squawked. “Grace! Ohhh, God…Grace…”

Methos smiled at the metallic djhurr of a zipper being undone and the unmistakable sounds of pleasure that followed. Looked like Joe wasn’t going to have to wait for the hot springs for that relaxation, he observed, ridiculously happy for his old friend. 

The air long having dried him, Methos shivered and looked over at Mac lying so still on the bed.

“Maybe some good has come out of this, after all,” Methos said. 

Knowing what was going on just a few yards outside his window raised a stabbing sense of isolation in Methos. He wasn’t expecting it, so it caught him off guard. Needing to be held more than he had in centuries, he stared longingly at the tiny space at the edge of Mac’s bed, then hesitantly stretched out alongside his oblivious lover. Wrapping his arms around MacLeod’s curled length, Methos spooned himself to the other man’s body and just held tight for the longest time. He didn’t know if he had the right to do this when Mac was unconscious, but right now he just needed the closeness.

“Happy anniversary,” he whispered, softly kissing the hair at Mac’s temple.

And then his own tears were falling as Joe’s had a few minutes ago, silently soaking the soft hair beneath his cheek as he desperately clung to the only comfort he’d found in this world.

********************

As the days dragged slowly by, becoming weeks, Methos’ sense of isolation only increased. It couldn’t be blamed on his companions, for both Joe and Grace went to great lengths to spend time with Methos and buoy his spirits, but there was just something about the dynamics of being trapped with two people who were hopelessly in love with each other that weighed on a heavy heart.

That wasn’t to say that Methos wasn’t glad for them. He’d never seen Joe Dawson so relaxed or happy; while Grace seemed to glow with an inner joy that made her twice as lovely. But the happiness his friends had found with each other only seemed to accentuate the fact that Duncan was no closer to consciousness than he’d been when they’d rescued him from Longford.

On some level, Methos had expected Mac’s recovery to take this long. As Duncan’s lover, he was more than willing to wait it out, however long it took. But as the sixth week of their confinement gave way to the seventh with no end in sight, Methos’ conscience began to weigh on him again. Neither Joe nor Grace had voiced a single complaint about the length of time this was taking, but both his friends were making more frequent trips into town to use the phone or the computer in Combloux’s cyber-café to take care of their personal business. 

Joe had been on a leave of absence from the Watchers for nearly two months now. God only knew how his tavern in Seacouver was doing. Mike managed the place for Joe whenever MacLeod’s seasonal move to Paris took Dawson overseas for the winter, but Joe had been here in France for more than sixteen months now. Mike couldn’t hold down the fort forever. 

As for Grace…Methos had no way of judging how this extended absence was affecting her life. He’d heard her talking to Joe about moving her work to Seacouver or Paris to be with him, so if she had that kind of freedom, perhaps being stuck here in the abbey wasn’t as great an issue for her, but Methos knew that Joe would be suffering if Dawson didn’t start taking care of business again soon. 

If nothing else, Joe would lose control of the Watchers again, and that was a situation Methos would do almost anything to avoid. As long as Joe Dawson was in charge, the Watchers would be the benign recorders of Immortal history they’d been set up to be. Without a man as honorable as Joe at the helm, there was no telling what that powerful, clandestine organization might devolve into. Horton’s death squads were too recent a phenomenon for Methos to feel comfortable leaving the Watchers without Joe’s guidance. 

So…the time had come to set his friends free so that they could get on with their lives, Methos sadly acknowledged as he removed the roast he was preparing from the oven.

He smiled as he heard the Land Rover pull to a stop outside the cottage and felt Grace’s familiar presence. Joe and Grace were right on time returning from their jaunt into the nearby ski town to collect the mail from their postbox and pick up supplies. Grace’s melodic giggle seemed to echo through the ruined old abbey like lark song as Joe made her laugh over something. 

Methos was going to miss the sound of their laughter and their bright company, but he couldn’t keep them here forever.

“Ah, you’re right on time,” Methos smiled as the pair exploded into the cottage, filling the small space with their excitement and cold air.

“Hi, Adam,” Grace greeted with a huge grin. Her light blue turtleneck set off her pink cheeks beautifully.

“How’s it going, guy?” Joe’s smile was equally broad as he stood beside her in a light gray fleece and jeans. 

The pheromones pouring off the pair were almost visible in the quaint kitchen’s air.

Wondering just what they’d got up to in his Land Rover, Methos grinned back.

With practiced familiarity, they moved around each other in the claustrophobically small kitchen as Methos strained the broccoli while Grace and Joe put the groceries away.

“That smells divine,” Grace said, taking a deep whiff of the fragrant roast.

“We’re famished,” Joe reported, stopping behind Grace to peer over her shoulder at the contents of the pan on the kitchen table. Dawson switched both his canes to his left hand, encircling Grace’s waist with his right to hug her from behind.

Recalling the dozens of times Duncan or he had done that to each other, Methos just enjoyed watching them being happy together. They moved like they were made for each other. Grace turned her head to look up at Joe, and his lips were right there to meet hers, fitting as naturally together as Mac’s and his had.

As if recalled to their present company, the pair parted with a start.

Pleasantly flushed, Grace gave Joe’s hand a squeeze and said, “I’ll be right back,” before disappearing into the bathroom.

“Sorry,” Joe said, blushing as he met Methos’ gaze.

“Nothing to apologize for,” Methos assured. “It’s good to see you so happy.”

“I didn’t come here to party,” Joe said, looking guilty of all things.

“We take joy where we find it, Joe. That’s what life is for. If we didn’t…what would be the point?” Methos said. “You’ve done more than any friend could ask for; you deserve a little happiness.”

Joe seemed to hesitate for a moment before he softly confided, “It’s not just a little happiness. It, ah, might sound absurd, considerin’ my age, but…I’ve never felt this way before. In the past, it was never longer than a week or two before they’d start getting’ that trapped look in their eyes, but…it’s been over a month now and…she’s still here…still smilin’ at me. It’s like…like my lack of legs doesn’t matter to her.”

Methos felt his throat tighten up. “It’s who you are that matters to her, Joe, what you give her. Believe me, when you live as long as we do, when you’re lucky enough to find the real thing, you hold onto it, no matter the cost.”

“You think I’m her real thing?” Joe asked, his hope so apparent it was heartbreaking.

“I think you’d need to ask Grace about that,” Methos started to say more, but stopped as he realized that Chandell’s familiar Immortal presence wasn’t nearly as far away as it had been a minute ago.

“If you have to ask, then I must be doing something wrong,” Grace said, coming up beside an uncomfortable looking Joe. The undisguised love in Grace’s smile seemed to cure that in a moment. Slipping her arm around Dawson’s waist, the petite Immortal hooked herself under his arm, acting as an organic support for the legless Watcher. “He makes a seven-hundred year old woman feel like a schoolgirl and has to ask if he’s the real thing,” Grace clucked, shaking her head as she squeezed Joe tighter. “I guess I should be happy he doesn’t know how special he is or I’d be fighting the women off with a stick!”

“Grace!” Joe protested, going scarlet.

“It’s true,” she insisted.

Chuckling, Methos let the couple argue as he turned back towards the potatoes he was mashing. 

“Here, let me get that,” Joe said, taking the heavy potato dish from Methos when he was done and carrying it to the table…to escape the no-doubt embarrassing discussion.

Grace gave Methos a huge smile and shook her head in exasperation, the love she felt for Dawson just pouring off her as she followed her lover to the tiny kitchen table where they took their meals together.

The next twenty minutes or so passed in relative silence as they filled their plates and stomachs. Methos was going to miss this. In the past month, they’d become very much a small family.

“You should have seen Combloux today. Eight tourist buses arrived at the same time. The streets were as crowded as Paris, with just as few people speaking French as there,” Grace laughed.

“Speaking of Paris,” Methos jumped on the opening he’d been waiting for, “are you missing it?”

Grace blinked in surprise.

By unspoken agreement, they all avoided discussing the conveniences and friends they were doing without while here at the abbey.

Her brown eyes swept Joe’s way before returning to Methos as she answered, “Not really. St. Bernard’s has much more to offer than anyplace I can think of right now.”

“What about you, Joe? It’s been a long time since you put in an appearance at your tavern,” Methos reminded.

Joe lowered his fork. “Subtle you ain’t. What’s goin’ on here? You getting’ tired of us?”

Methos gave an instant, negative shake of his head. “Never. It’s just…”

“Yes?” Grace prompted after exchanging a quick glance with Joe.

“I think it’s clear to us all now that Duncan isn’t recovering as quickly as we’d hoped. We’ve been here almost two months and…I know how much you both sacrificed to help out here. Maybe the time has come for you to return to your lives…” Methos trailed off, unable to continue in the face of their obvious shock. He’d had more strength once. Not so long ago, there was nothing he wasn’t able to walk away from and never see again. Yet, telling these two cherished friends to leave now was taking almost all the strength he had.

“And leave you and Mac alone on this godforsaken mountain?” Joe gaped. “That’s just not happening, buddy, so don’t even go there.”

“Joe…” Methos started.

“Don’t _Joe_ me! You said yourself that Mac’s no better. How could we possibly leave you alone up here?” Joe demanded.

Methos’ heart warmed at Joe’s loyalty. The man was one of a kind. He’d stood beside Methos through Hell this last year, and, at a point where most people would welcome an escape route, Joe was volunteering for another tour of duty. Methos was very aware of the fact that Joe hadn’t said that he didn’t want to go, but the idea of abandoning his friends in a time of need simply wasn’t in Joe Dawson’s character makeup.

“I wouldn’t be alone. Mac is here--”

“Mac is unconscious,” Grace reminded.

Methos nodded, spearing them both with his gaze as he voiced the truth they all had been hiding from, himself more than anyone, “And will likely remain so for some time to come. Can’t you see? I can’t ask you to waste months or years of your lives--”

“It’s not wasted,” Joe insisted. “We--”

“You have lives to live and a new love to explore,” Methos countered. “I’m not going to kid you or myself. What’s wrong with Duncan could take years to rectify.”

“We knew that when we signed on, Meth—Adam,” Joe quickly corrected himself. 

“And I appreciate your loyalty and devotion,” Methos said. Realizing that he was never going to convince his stalwart friend to just go, he switched tactics, “But…you might help me more by leaving now.”

“How could our runnin’ out on you ever help?” Joe questioned.

“It wouldn’t be running out. Right now I am still happy just to have Duncan back here alive. I don’t mind being here with him alone or taking care of him. If I had to, I could do it for decades.” Which was good, because they all knew that was the prospect they were facing, Methos thought. “But…the time may come in the future when I need a break. If we are all three here, draining ourselves on a constant basis, we’re all going to tire at once. If you were to leave now and return to your lives, I wouldn’t feel too guilty about asking you to take over for me for brief periods of respite.”

“He has a point, Joe,” Grace entered the discussion, her serious expression telling Methos how troubled she was by the entire idea. “There will come a point when a break will be necessary for anyone involved in this intense a level of care-taking. If we all burn out at the same time, there won’t be anyone to take over.”

“But…” Joe started.

“I’m not saying I don’t want to see either of you. Should you stay in France, I’d look forward to your visits with bated breath, but I just don’t think it’s sensible for all of us to be imprisoned here.”

“What are you going to do about food?” Joe demanded, prosaic as ever. “You can’t leave him alone to do the shopping. It’s a two-hour roundtrip to the grocery store. If you leave Mac alone for that long, another Immortal could just drag him off sacred ground and take his head.”

“I spoke to Werner down the road – the man who does the care-taking around the abbey for me. He agreed to stop in and pick up my list on his weekly grocery run,” Methos supplied.

“You’ve thought of everything – haven’t you?” Joe said, looking none too pleased.

Methos tilted his head in acknowledgement, a wry smile touching his lips, “I’ve been told it’s my forte. Joe, it’s not that I don’t want your company, it’s just…you’re mortal. Your time here is all the more precious. You and Grace have found something special. You need to give that a chance to grow. Cabin fever can kill the best of relationships. Why take the risk? And then there’s the Watch--” Methos broke off, horrified by the magnitude of the mistake he’d nearly made. He was so comfortable in Grace’s company that he often forgot how little she knew about them both.

Joe’s next line was hardly surprising, considering how hard he’d fallen for the lovely Immortal at his side, “It’s okay. I told Grace about the Watchers.”

Methos nodded, relieved that he hadn’t broken that trust. “You know you can’t stay away much longer without being replaced and there’s no way you can run things effectively in a place with no phone or internet service.”

Joe gave a slow nod and then suggested, “I could give it up.”

“No, you couldn’t. The Watchers Organization needs a decent man like you at its helm. And you need your life back,” Methos insisted.

“You and Mac are a major part of that life,” Joe argued.

“I know. That means more to us than I can say. But loving us doesn’t require sacrificing everything for us. Please, go build something wonderful with Grace here. Come back to visit me in joy,” Methos pleaded.

“Here’s your hat and what’s your hurry, huh? I don’t like this, Meth-Adam, I don’t like it one bit,” Joe said. With a flair that would have been worthy of Mac at his most impossible, Dawson got up from the table and left the room as swiftly as his shamble allowed.

In the silence that followed, Methos looked over at Grace.

She was sitting there with the calm that had typified her from the first, watching him out of those incredible sloe eyes. 

He felt so bad about upsetting Joe that he couldn’t hold her gaze. He looked down instead at the wreck of his mashed potatoes.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Methos said softly, wondering if she thought him the ungrateful prick he felt at the moment.

“I know,” Grace assured. 

“It’s just, his time is so short. He’s finally found something good. This last year has been so hard on him…”

“Adam.”

Methos hesitantly raised his gaze from his plate.

“You’re right. Whether he’ll admit it or not, the isolation is getting to Joe. He needs a break…so do I, to be honest.”

Appreciating her candor, Methos relaxed enough to ask, “Will you stay with him once you leave here?”

He wasn’t child enough to assume that simply because Joe and Grace clicked that they would form the lasting tie Dawson needed. Methos was only too aware how what looked like the real thing when you were trapped alone on a desert island could turn into a ball and chain once you were returned to your normal life.

Grace didn’t even seem upset by his inquiry. To the contrary, her face softened with understanding. “I’ll stay with him as long as he’ll have me. He’s…a most extraordinary man. I never expected to find real love again, never so soon after Paul, but….”

“It happens when you least expect it?” Methos suggested.

“Yes. Was that how it was for you and Duncan?”

Methos studied her serene features, not understanding how anyone who’d been fortunate enough to have Duncan MacLeod as a lover could possibly be so calm discussing his transfer of affections to someone else. But then, she and Mac had parted more than a century ago, and she had Joe Dawson in her life now, so perhaps she could be that generous.

Whatever the case, Methos appreciated the opportunity to be frank about his feeling for MacLeod. Even with Joe, there was only so much his old friend wanted to hear.

Giving a guarded nod, Methos admitted, “I was lost from the moment I first laid eyes on him.”

“He’s a lucky man,” Grace smiled.

“So is Joe,” Methos countered.

“No, I’m the lucky one,” Grace said. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll take care of him for you.”

“Thank you,” Methos bowed his head as he would have at court five hundred years ago in the presence of his liege.

“No, thank you, Ad…that isn’t your real name – is it? A dozen times a day Joe starts to call you something else and then stops himself,” Grace laughed. “Is there a reason you don’t use your real name among your own kind?”

Methos gave a slow nod, evaluating the possible dangers of this conversation. After a moment, he said only “Yes,” and waited for the inevitable question – which did not come.

When the silence felt like it would stretch into infinity, he cast his fate to the proverbial winds. If he could trust his secret to Amanda, he could certainly take a chance with this lovely healer. But much would depend on her familiarity with the legend. Not all Immortals knew of the oldest man.

Taking a chance he never would have dared ten years ago, Methos quietly offered, “I am Methos.”

“Meth…” her eyes bulged in shock. “Dear God.”

“I’m not quite as old as that,” Methos joked, nervous as he always was after making such a disclosure.

To his surprise, the dozens of questions that naturally followed that announcement weren’t voiced. Instead, Grace reached across the table, took his hand and just squeezed it. “No wonder the time it’s taking Duncan to heal hasn’t fazed you.”

“It has fazed me, Grace, believe me, but…what other choice have I?”

Her other hand rose to encircle his captured one. For the longest time, she simply sat there holding onto him. 

Finally, Methos was forced to speak. “Usually, when I make that revelation, there are a thousand questions that follow.”

“I’ve survived seven-hundred years, Methos,” she spoke his name slowly, as if sampling all its nuances. “I know what the flow of time does to a person. I’ve had students who’ve hounded me for advice and insight. I won’t bother you that way. Besides,” and here she turned on that magnificent smile of hers, “you’ve already answered the Sixty-four Thousand Dollar, Meaning of Life question for me.”

“I have?” Methos started, having no clue as to what she was referring to. “When?”

“Every day when I watch you with Duncan. The most important thing in the oldest Immortal’s world is love.” She gave his trapped hand another squeeze. 

“Grace…” In another world and time, he could have loved her, Methos recognized, his eyes pricking with tears of gratitude.

As if sensing how much he didn’t want to breakdown in front of her, Grace gave another smile and lightly announced, “I’m going to go talk to Joe. We’ll go back down to Comboux tomorrow and make plane reservations to leave for Paris next Monday. We can probably get a taxi to pick us up at your friend Werner’s down the road.”

Methos nodded, doing his best to pull himself together. He wasn’t accustomed to people surprising him this way.

“You’ll be staying in Paris then?” Methos questioned.

“I think so. Joe is comfortable there. There’s a large community of Blues lovers and….”

“You’ll be close?” Methos could almost read her mind.

“Yes. Precisely.”

“Grace?”

“Yes?” she smiled.

“Thank you…for everything.”

She gave a firm shake of her head. “No, thank you. You don’t know what meeting Joe has meant to me.”

Standing up, she gave Methos’ forehead a quick peck and then hurried off to the room she’d shared with Joe these last few weeks.

*******************

The day after Grace and Joe flew off for Paris, winter seemed to close in around the abbey with a vengeance. It happened that way in the mountains. One morning, there would be only a couple of inches of snow on the ground, the air would be chilly, but manageable, then the next day, the winds would howl down from the Alps like a wailing banshee, the temperature would drop to a cold so intense it would freeze the nose hairs, and the dark storm clouds would pelt the ground with snow and ice. By solstice week, there was over four feet of snow on the ground, and it was still falling steadily.

There was no quiet quite so complete as that of a snowbound cottage, Methos thought as he stared out the bedroom window at the barrage of flakes pouring down from the sky above, watching the dying of the light. The abbey wall out back was over fifteen feet tall at its highest point to the east, running down in a jagged line to just about eight feet at its lowest point to the south. Normally that lichen stained, gray rock wall and the hedgerow in front of it predominated the view, but this evening, the wall and hedge were nearly invisible. Coated in snow, they faded into the uninterrupted white with the rose bushes, trees and boulders that were now only anonymous white bulges in a colorless landscape. Even the mountains were gone now.

Methos sighed, his mind wandering back to the countless years he’d watched through his glassless casement window in the abbey, shuddering in his brown robes as the snow ate those same mountains. It was strange. When he’d first come to St. Bernard’s all those centuries ago, he’d been a complete wreck, totally shattered by the castration he hadn’t been able to avoid. The tissue regeneration hadn’t hurt, but it had been a gruelingly slow process. Yet, when he thought back on those days now, it wasn’t the horror of his mutilated body that he recalled most, but the peace of the place that had offered him sanctuary. Even when he’d been freezing in an unlighted, unheated tiny monk’s cell, there had been something special about the abbey that had healed his soul.

It was the power of the place, of course. Three of the Earth’s ley lines intersected beneath the hot springs and chapel. St. Bernard’s was the psychic equivalent of a super-battery to those sensitive to such things, and Methos had always been extremely so. Now that the solstice was upon them, the energy of the abbey was almost unbearably intense. It would fade as it always did to a bearable level once the solstice passed, but right now the power was so enhanced that it was practically tingling along Methos’ skin.

Myrddid used to cast his greatest spells on nights like this. A vivid image of his former teacher flashed into Methos’ mind. Even with his eyes wide open, staring out that window at the blank whiteness of the blizzard raging outside, Methos could see the Immortal, whom history touted as the greatest sorcerer of all time, sitting beside their hearth, his long silver hair and the skin of his angular face tinged orange from the dancing flames as his slender fingers danced across the harp in his lap, while Myrddid’s mind and will used the simple tunes he played to affect changes in the world around him that modern science couldn’t explain or accept.

Stars, how he wished Myrddid were here now. If anyone could help Mac, it would be him. Methos had never seen healings like those the ancient sorcerer had manifested. In this place where time had stopped, Methos could hear Myrddid’s earthy chuckle, hear that sensual, deep voice telling him on that Beltaine night millennia past, “On a night such as this, my son, magic will work itself. You need only open yourself to the Mystery’s will to be her vessel….”

That voice was so clear that Methos swore the man was right here with him now. He could almost feel that ancient presence ringing through the bedroom. Shivering despite the perfectly comfortable temperature, Methos stared around the room, half expecting to see that tall, ghostly specter standing in the doorway in his robe of raven and crow feathers.

But Myrddid wasn’t there. His bones were buried beneath the stone bearing his name in his beloved Wales, where Methos had left him after the Goth general Darius had taken his Quickening, changing Methos’ life and the world forever. The greatest sorcerer ever was dead. Only his apprentice remained, the student who’d been more interested in the mysteries he’d explored in his master’s bed than those wonders the ancient magician had struggled to impart to him. And like all laggards, Methos now had cause to regret his inattention, on this night when the power was playing along his skin like an electric charge, when magic would work itself for those with the skill and the nerve. 

Methos knew his skill to be questionable, but his nerve….

He turned from the empty bedroom doorway to stare at the room’s only other inhabitant. Duncan lay curled on his right side on the hospital bed, facing Methos, the Highlander’s features as perfect as if carved from marble, and just as animated as that cold stone.

Maybe Joe was right in his warning that Methos was going to crack from the solitude, the pragmatist in him recognized. It hadn’t even been three weeks since Grace and Joe left, and already he was searching for fast cures to a problem that he knew was going to take a monumental amount of time to right itself. But…he missed Duncan so damn much, missed his laughter, missed his touch; hell, he even missed the pig-headed determination that drove him to distraction at times. Methos would give his life to have this impossible man returned to normal.

And the ability to do so was just within his grasp…if he had the nerve to reach for it.

The power was playing along his skin in a visceral temptation, while Myrddid’s voice whispered in his ear…and Duncan lay there on the bed like a marionette with cut strings. Gazing at that insensible profile, Methos couldn’t help but wonder what it could hurt to try. MacLeod was Immortal. Whatever Methos did, it wouldn’t kill Duncan. If he failed, Mac would probably just continue to lie there like Sleeping Beauty for the next hundred years or so, the same as he was doing now. What could it hurt? How much worse could Duncan get?

The answer to his question flashed into his mind, a clear picture of the alien expression on his drinking buddy Gareth’s face as a changeling stared at Methos out of Gareth’s eyes. He knew how dangerous what he was contemplating was. Myrddid had always stressed how perilous it could be for the untrained to tamper with the Mystery. All manner of beings were attracted by the use of magic. If he weren’t careful, Methos could very well find a stranger staring at him out of his lover’s eyes…or he could do everything right and affect the kind of healing Myrddid had been famous for. Mac could open his eyes, smile at him and pull him down into that bed. They could be making lover before dawn and supping with Joe and Grace on Christmas day at the end of the week.

If he had the nerve to do this.

He wasn’t untutored, Methos reminded himself. He’d spent over eighty years at Myrddid’s side, more than fifty of those years as his student. He’d seen and done things no human - or Immortal – would believe possible. He knew how his master had worked. Myrddid had always insisted that he had a natural talent for these arts, he remembered, choosing not to recall how his master had always amended that line with a warning as to why it was all the more important for one such as he to learn discipline.

He had the knowledge; he had the nerve, as for power…with the way the world was thrumming tonight, Methos might have called Myrddid back from the dead were that his goal.

Power like this, it longed to be used. If Methos didn’t work his spell now, it would be Beltaine before the energy ran this strong again. Imbolc would be in a few more weeks, of course, but the power wasn’t as high then as it was on the solstice and Beltaine. So, it was tonight or a five-month wait before he could duplicate tonight’s conditions. 

Methos had never considered himself a gambler. A year ago, he would never have considered trying something this risky, but a year ago he’d been sane. The eight months he’d spent enduring his nightly horror-show of his entombed lover screaming in agony had broken something in him. The last two months had restored some of his stability, but…he was hanging on by a thread. He knew it, even if he’d fooled Grace and Joe.

And, deep down inside, Methos knew that this had been his plan all along; why else would he have brought Myrddid’s harp up here when he’d retrieved Joe’s guitars? For nearly fifteen hundred years, he’d been afraid to be in the same room with that harp, but there it sat in its ancient travel bag beside their empty suitcases on the far side of the room, calling to Methos’ blood the same way the power did.

For a long time, Methos stood by the darkening window, staring over at MacLeod as he measured his courage. 

In the end, he did what he always did when faced with temptation – he crumbled. Seventeen-hundred years ago this very same weakness had plunged the world into its last dark age, no matter what Myrddid had said to the contrary. A wise man would heed that lesson and leave the harp where it was, but a wise man would never have revealed his feelings to Duncan MacLeod in the first place.

His mind set, Methos turned MacLeod onto his opposite side and then left the room to prepare himself.

Methos returned three hours later. He performed his usual nightly tasks: changed Duncan, settled his lover on his other side so that he faced the window again, covered the comatose man against the night’s chill and washed his hands one more time. Only tonight when he was through, Methos didn’t return to his own pallet to sleep. Instead, he smudged the room with frankincense smoke to cleanse away all negativity, lit a white candle in all four of the room’s cardinal points, and then crossed the room to retrieve Myrddid’s harp from its worn travel bag. 

Methos trembled as he bent to unwrap the instrument from the sheepskin it was swaddled in. The energy swirling through the candlelit room had increased astronomically at the unveiling of Myrddid’s harp. He stared at the ancient clarsach, as ever astounded by the power the unimpressive instrument possessed. Small and dark, the tiny harp looked completely worthless, but Methos knew that this unprepossessing collection of wood and bronze strings was worth more than any of the kingdoms he’d ruled or sacked.

His courage almost failed him as he came face to face with the harp, but sensing how the power in the room seemed to almost draw a proverbial breath in anticipation, he reached down and picked it up. As ever, once he actually touched the thing, there was no turning back.

He took a seat on the straight-backed wooden chair he’d left beside Mac’s bed. Taking a deep breath, Methos cleared his mind of all worries and concerns. When he felt relaxed enough, he approached the hard part, the actual working of his spell. He could almost feel Myrddid standing beside him, counseling him. Focus and intent, those were the keys. Keep it short and sweet, for the most effective spells were perforce the simplest. The more complicated the request, the more places it could go awry. So, Methos fixed on his goal and reduced his spell to its barest bones – Mac conscious. That was it. Nothing more complicated than a minor miracle, he wryly acknowledged as he stared at the oblivious man in the bed, the man who hadn’t opened his eyes in the two months he’d been free.

He tested the harp’s tuning. As on the barge, the instrument was in perfect tune, even though it had been nearly sixteen centuries since a tuning key had touched it.

And then Methos started playing the ancient tune that Myrddid had used to wake dragons once upon a time.

Methos was barely aware of how the simple twelve-note modal tune grew in volume as his fingers danced that near-forgotten waltz with those cold metal strings. The power grew and pulsed around him, almost visible to his half closed eyes. Methos focused his entire being on his two-word _Mac-conscious_ spell, drawing the energy from the ley lines into himself, becoming the Mystery’s vessel, allowing it to work its will through him, hoping that his will and the Mystery’s would become one.

Though less than a half-hour passed as he played, the strain of concentrating so completely on his goal was exhausting, but not nearly as draining as opening himself to the power and becoming a living conduit to its force was. His nerves felt engorged as the charge sizzled through him. But Kronos and Myrddid had trained him well. Methos knew how to ignore pain, how to take it and make it part of his focus.

His spell built to an unbearable crescendo, and then peaked like an orgasm. Unlike weather-working, there was no wind or thunder to commemorate his healing spell’s manifestation. Methos felt it on a psychic level as a sudden burst of focused energy. The ley power flashed through him, to fill and affect every molecule in the room, altering the current plane of reality to mirror Methos’ will, as it had danced to Myrddid’s bidding all those centuries ago.

He gasped at the stupendous rush of energy, holding his breath as it passed and the power in the room slowly settled down to something resembling a normal time-continuum. As Methos sat there with his eyes closed in the psychic aftermath, nearly too afraid to open them, the conundrum of Shroedinger’s cat filled his mind. Would the cat be alive or dead when the physicist opened that box? Would Duncan be conscious or comatose when Methos opened his eyes?

Unable to bear the uncertainty another moment, Methos opened his eyes…just in time to catch sight of Duncan MacLeod doing the same. Those impossibly long fans of eyelashes parted…and for the first time in over ten months, Methos stared into the sensual brown eyes that had made his world complete.

“Duncan?” he called in a tremulous whisper, shaking so hard that the harp was in danger of falling from his hands.

MacLeod didn’t turn his head at the sound of his name. The open eyes didn’t move from the point they were staring at in the middle distance.

Dropping the harp to the area rug on the floor, Methos hunched over the bed, placing himself in MacLeod’s direct line of sight.

“Mac?”

The stare didn’t waver. 

Methos jerked his hand towards MacLeod’s eyes…the Highlander neither flinched nor blinked.

“Please…no….” Methos begged, shaking the unresponsive man’s shoulders in his despair. 

There was no start to consciousness, no demand that Methos stop jerking him. Duncan just lay there like a wax sculpture and, after a few, insane minutes, Methos stopped shaking his friend.

Life was nothing if not lessons learned. And Methos had never learned the easy way.

This was what Myrddid had attempted to pound into his thick skull sixteen-hundred years ago; this was why one didn’t meddle with magic. You got what you asked for. Always. Averlin had gotten his beloved Gareth back from the dead, more or less. And Methos had gotten Mac conscious. It had never occurred to Methos to tag on the addendum _and in full possession of his faculties_ onto his spell. He supposed that that…clarity of vision was what separated the apprentices from the true adepts. 

But all of that was meaningless to him as he stared into the path of that unseeing gaze. His dreams shattering around him, Methos was too exhausted to have any hope of control. His disappointment exploded from his eyes in a burst of burning tears that was as fierce as the spike of power that had affected this healing…if healing it even was. Sobbing, he buried his wet face in the duvet covering MacLeod’s chest and cried his heart out as his oblivious lover’s unfocused gaze stared past his left shoulder.

Two, perhaps three hours later, Methos raised his head, almost afraid that he’d find Duncan back in his comatose sleep. But the flickering light of the near-gutted candles revealed Mac’s eyes to be open, if no more alert than before.

Although Methos couldn’t tell what was going on with MacLeod, the one thing he did know was that he hadn’t screwed up completely. Duncan’s Immortal signature was unchanged. Methos mightn’t have affected a complete healing, but at least he hadn’t called up a doppelganger. And, conscious was a lot better than insensible. This was an improvement; that was what he had to focus on. The rest would come in time.

Telling himself that over and over again, Methos stared down at those beautiful, somber features, trying not to be unnerved by the distant gaze.

Forcing a smile, Methos tried for as much cheer as he could manage. It wasn’t much, but Mac didn’t seem to be in a complaining mood tonight, he ironically noted.

“Welcome back,” he said softly, hoping that the sound of his voice might attract Mac’s attention, but MacLeod’s stare never wavered. “I’m sorry my reaction wasn’t better before. It’s…been a hard year, Mac. But it’s going to improve now that you’re awake. We’ll just give it a bit more time, shall we?”

Affecting not to notice Mac’s lack of response, Methos continued with, “I’m just going to clean up this place a bit, then I’ll be right back.”

Rising from the hospital bed, Methos arched his tired back, then bent down to retrieve Myrddid’s harp from where it lay on its side on the maroon, white and black Oriental rug. He could still feel the power coursing through its innocuous looking body. A more arrogant practitioner might have sat down with that harp and given it another try, but Methos was wise enough not to press his luck. If Myrddid were here, his master might have walked him through the process until he reached a successful outcome, but there wasn’t anybody alive these days with that kind of training. Most were charlatans and those rare few with legitimate talent…they didn’t know even as much as Methos. It truly was a different world than the one Myrddid and Artos had walked.

Methos’ mind shied away from even the thought of his dead friend’s name. There were some memories that could never be revisited.

Sighing, he wrapped the harp back up in its sheepskin and then stored it safely out of sight in its travel bag.

He paused to blow out the two candles that were seconds away from expiring on their own. As the last one puffed out, Methos watched the gray smoke drift lazily up to the ceiling and tried to deal with his disappointment. 

Mac’s eyes were open now. He had no way of knowing how much his lover was actually absorbing, so from this point on, Methos was determined to present only a positive environment. No more bawling his eyes out, no more feeling sorry for himself. Mac was awake now. That was a hell of an improvement from this morning. 

Returning to the bed, Methos paused before the IV feed that was keeping MacLeod hydrated. 

“I don’t think you’ll be needing this anymore,” Methos said before carefully detaching the IV from Mac’s boarded left wrist. He unwrapped the tape afterwards to remove the board…and felt himself smiling as he caught sight of the needle’s puncture point and the black and blue bruises around it healing up. There was definitely something to be said for having an Immortal for a patient.

After disposing of the IV paraphernalia in the trash can on the other side of the room, Methos stared at his cot, then back at Mac in the hospital bed.

He still didn’t know how Mac was going to feel about him when his lover was back in his right mind. He knew he didn’t have the right to take any liberties here and yet…it hurt so much to be this close to Mac and not be allowed to touch.

Methos approached Mac’s bed like a penitent, feeling like…he didn’t know what. When he’d been a conscienceless murderer, he’d never experienced these kinds of qualms. He stared down at Mac’s strong, handsome features. The dark hair was longer now, almost touching Mac’s shoulders. With his eyes open, MacLeod looked very much himself. But there was still no one home behind that faraway gaze.

For etiquette’s sake, Methos softly asked, “Do you mind if I bunk in with you tonight, Duncan?”

Mac didn’t answer, but he didn’t refuse him, either. There was a time when silence was considered equitable to assent. 

Still feeling like some kind of criminal, Methos climbed into the narrow bed behind his friend. He laid an arm over Mac’s trim waist and spooned himself up close. Lulled by Mac’s steady breathing and his companion’s familiar scent, Methos found himself relaxing in spite of the night’s disappointments. His eyes drooping shut, he gave himself over to sleep.

********************

The bedroom was whiter than the sands in Death Valley at high noon. Wincing as he opened his eyes to the blindingly bright light, Methos was temporarily puzzled as to where he was and how long he’d slept. The back of Duncan’s head filling his vision answered his first question. Sitting up, Methos peered over Mac’s shoulder at the window to discover the answer to his second.

It had finally stopped snowing. More than that, the mountains were back, even if the abbey and garden were still a white blur. The sun was beating down on that white carpet mercilessly, bouncing off the snow to fill the bedroom with so much light that it felt like they were trapped inside a lightbulb.

Methos peered over Mac’s broad shoulder to see his friend’s face. The Highlander’s eyes were open. There’d been a part of Methos that had feared his lover would fail to wake once he fell back to sleep again, but those brown eyes were wide and appeared rested. They also seemed to be a bit more focused this morning. Methos followed the direction of Mac’s stare, smiling as he realized his companion appeared to be watching the rainbow spectrum of light the sunshine was making on the far wall as it passed through the enormous icicle hanging just outside their window.

“Good morning, Mac,” Methos greeted, leaning over to brush a chaste kiss on the nearby cheek. It was how he’d greeted Duncan every morning for the last two months. Methos saw no reason to alter his patterns just because Mac’s eyes were open. He planned on continuing until MacLeod requested that he change his habits. “How did you sleep?”

There was no answer, not that Methos was really expecting one. 

His bladder making a nuisance of itself, Methos hauled himself out of bed with a groan. He hated mornings with a passion. 

About to dash for the bog, he stopped, realizing that Mac was conscious now and, therefore, far more subject to discomfort.

It must be love, Methos thought as he moved to the dresser where the diapers were stacked, not understanding his happy mood. 

Back at the bed, he knew a moment’s discomfort. He was used to just changing the unconscious Duncan when necessary. But pulling someone’s hospital gown up and removing the only thing covering the gonads while that person’s eyes were wide open was another situation entirely.

“I’ll change you now – all right?” Methos questioned, once again feeling like some kind of criminal.

Getting back into that silence-is-assent groove that he’d started to develop last night, Methos reached for Mac’s gown. He moved slowly, so as not to jar or startle. He needn’t have worried. Mac seemed just as oblivious to having his diaper opened as he had the previous morning.

It was actually Methos who gave a start. There hadn’t been a single day yet when Mac had woken up with a perfectly dry and clean diaper. Which meant….

“Perhaps we’d better get you to the bathroom, ey?” he smiled and quickly fetched from the room’s far corner the wheelchair he used to take Mac down to the hot springs. 

“Up we go,” Methos encouraged, easing Mac into a sitting position. Methos guided those hairy legs off the side of the bed, then wrapped his arm around Mac’s waist to transfer him to the nearby wheelchair.

Methos had intended to simply swing Mac over to his chair, but halfway to his seat, MacLeod extended his legs, shifted away from Methos…and stood on his own two feet. 

Mac wobbled as any man who hadn’t been out of bed for two months might, but the physical therapy Methos had been performing on his friend had obviously been effective. Mac’s legs shook, but they held his weight up. 

His eyes stinging with joy, Methos wrapped his arm around Mac’s waist to support him, noting with a physician’s eye how Mac still wasn’t standing completely erect. He was stooped over like an old man – obviously as a result of his back muscles.

“You want to try it on your own?” Methos questioned. “We can do that.”

Hooking the back of the wheelchair with his free right hand, Methos rolled it behind them as they made their cautious way to the bathroom down the hall, moving slower than Joe Dawson with a hangover. Methos knew the progression had to be excruciating for Mac as his unused muscles were called upon to perform, but MacLeod’s face remained strangely blank, as removed from the physical discomfort as he’d been while in his coma.

It took over five minutes to make the trip, but MacLeod didn’t falter once. He just followed where Methos led. When they reached the tiny bathroom, Methos was forced to leave the wheelchair out in the hall, for there wasn’t enough room for two grown men and the chair inside the loo. 

Methos lifted Mac’s light blue hospital gown and eased him down to sit on the commode.

To the best of Methos’ knowledge, Duncan’s gaze hadn’t focused on anything clearly yet. His lover seemed to stare in the direction of things, rather than directly at them. It almost seemed as though Mac were paying attention to something internal, like he were watching a movie in his mind or concentrating on something that Methos couldn’t see. But Mac must have had some sense of his surroundings, for a few moments after Methos sat his friend on the toilet, Duncan made use of the facilities in a gusty gush of sound.

“Yesss!” Methos laughed, almost giddy as the warm scent of urine filled the air.

As ever, Mac relieved himself in a powerful, noisy stream. Listening, Methos felt an absurd sense of glee that was akin to the feeling one experienced when a baby they were rearing took its first step. 

Methos didn’t know what was going on with Mac mentally, but his friend was here on some level, that much was clear.

Weak with relief, Methos offered up a silent prayer of thanks and waited for MacLeod to finish his business.

When it seemed that Mac had done all he was going to there, Methos reached out and eased the Highlander back onto his feet. Placing his left arm around his lover’s way-too-slender waist to support him, Methos freed himself from the gray sweat pants he was wearing and took care of his own bursting bladder with his right hand. It was rather like one of those mornings on the barge when they couldn’t bear to let go of each other, when they’d stand there in front of the bowl like a pair of kids and have a pissing contest. Grinning, Methos recalled that Mac always won those.

Well, this was a new one even for a five-thousand-year-old man, Methos wryly acknowledged his own foibles. It wasn’t everyday someone waxed rhapsodic and became completely euphoric over another man taking a piss. He’d well and truly lost it. But, gods, he was happy, so incredibly happy.

Mac wasn’t back yet, but he was well on his way there.

Not needing to force his cheer, Methos told his silent companion, “I think we need to work your back muscles some more. Let’s go have breakfast, then I’ll give you another massage, okay?”

Meeting no protest, he led his unresisting friend out of the room.

*********************

The remainder of that day and those that followed were a time of exploration for Methos as he mapped out the limits of Mac’s responsiveness. It was a puzzling and vexing situation, for there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to what MacLeod would and wouldn’t do. Mostly, Mac just sat where he was left, his attention focused on some internal point. The only time MacLeod moved of his own volition was when he had to relieve himself. No matter where they were in the cottage or down in the hot springs below, if Mac had to use the facilities, he would get up and go to the bathroom, which to Methos’ mind implied a hell of an awareness of his outer surroundings. And yet, when through relieving himself, MacLeod would just sit on the commode until Methos came to reclaim him, as if he had no conscious control over himself.

It was the same when it came to eating. MacLeod’s appetite was healthy, but Methos had to put the food in his mouth or Mac would starve to death. Mac wasn’t a picky eater. He’d chew and swallow anything Methos made, but if Methos didn’t spoon-feed it to him, his meal would remain untouched on the Highlander’s plate.

Mac’s pliancy was what troubled Methos the most. Methos could strip the man, bring him into a hot shower or submerge him in the hot springs and there would be absolutely no response. He could bring a candle so close to Mac’s eyes that those long lashes nearly ignited, and MacLeod wouldn’t jerk his head back. He’d only close his eyes when the light became too intense, which Methos supposed was some type of gain. 

As frustrating as Mac’s lack of initiative was, those following weeks were still a time of healing for Methos. His daily routine was fairly similar to what it had been since they’d come to St. Bernard’s. He spent the majority of his day doing bodywork on MacLeod or soaking with him in the hot springs downstairs, and the remainder of his time seeing to the thousand and one mundane tasks, like cooking, cleaning and laundry, that kept a household functioning. But now that Mac was mobile and theoretically conscious, the experience had expanded for Methos. He’d spent decades in monasteries. Silence didn’t bother him. It might be his imagination, but he felt that Mac was aware of him on some level and just not able to reach out yet. 

Every day, Methos could see the changes in MacLeod. His friend’s physical condition improved on an almost daily basis. After those first few wobbly days, Mac was able to stand and walk on his own – which expanded their world considerably. When it wasn’t too cold outside, Methos would take Mac for brief walks around the abbey grounds to build up his stamina. On the inclement days, of which there were many, Methos read to his silent companion. And he found himself talking, nonstop, about anything and everything that came to mind: his past, Duncan’s past, the people Methos had known, the things he’d seen, how wonderful everything would be when Mac recovered. Methos talked about anything he could think of that might interest his friend, working his damnedest to try to lure MacLeod out of the never-never-land the Highlander was lost in.

Methos couldn’t say that his efforts were entirely unsuccessful. There were times when Mac really almost seemed to be listening to him, where that stare wasn’t entirely blank. But there was never anything like recognition in Duncan’s face, and those lucid moments passed so quickly Methos would barely be aware of them before they vanished.

Today was not one of those near-lucid instances, however, Methos reflected as he spread the onion he’d just finished chopping on top of the roast they were going to have for dinner. He glanced over at his silent companion, who was sitting in the chair at the corner of the kitchen table, staring off into the middle distance the same as ever.

Methos took some pride in how normal MacLeod looked now, if one ignored the blankness of his expression. Methos kept his lover clean-shaven the way Mac preferred. Their daily shower and the afternoons spent in the hot springs kept them both squeaky clean. Though the clothes he’d worn immediately before his abduction hung on this thinner Mac like an older brother’s hand-me-downs, MacLeod was fitting his older wardrobe perfectly. They were the clothes he’d worn a decade ago when he’d been with Tessa, before Mac had transformed his body into the perfect fighting machine. Methos was glad of the foresight he’d had in packing these older things. They were the only clothing that truly fit this flensed MacLeod. 

But a stranger would never have known there was anything wrong with Mac looking at him now. Sitting there in his faded blue jeans and denim work shirt, with his longish hair pulled back, Mac was his handsome self again.

Catching sight of his own reflection in the silver teakettle on the stovetop, Methos had to smile. Mac might be looking normal these days, but Methos himself was a complete wreck. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a haircut. His dark, shaggy hair was as long as Mac’s now. He had it pulled back in a ponytail like MacLeod’s, but the style that looked perfectly neat and attractive on Mac, only made him appear unkempt. 

Not that his clothes were helping that impression any. Unlike MacLeod, who had a complete wardrobe he’d outgrown to revert to, Methos didn’t. The twenty pounds he’d dropped in the past year had left him looking like a scarecrow in his loose jeans and henleys. Methos was eating again, but the pounds just didn’t seem to be coming back the way they should.

“We’ll take care of that tonight, hmmm?” Methos smiled as he put the roast in the oven and set the timer. “I’m making those mashed potatoes you liked so much the last time. They’re sure to put five pounds on us both.”

There was, of course, no response, but Methos wasn’t expecting one.

Their dinner preparations dealt with, he turned back to MacLeod. “Are you ready for your massage? I think those back muscles are almost back to normal now. You’re standing much straighter, but we’ll keep at it all the same – okay?”

If it wasn’t okay, Mac kept his opinion to himself as Methos hooked Mac’s elbows and guided him to his feet. Docile as a child, the somnambulist Highlander allowed himself to be led back to the bedroom.

This was always the hardest part, Methos thought, drawing in a deep breath as they stopped beside the four poster bed Methos had put back together right after Mac’s return to consciousness. Methos had no problem with shaving, bathing or dressing his oblivious lover, but when it came to taking Mac’s clothes off like this, Methos was always far too physically aware of his friend for his own peace of mind. It had been different when Mac was unconscious. Methos had had no trouble doing anything to his naked friend’s body, but now that Mac was dressed and mobile again, looking so damn normal, Methos’ libido was playing hell with him. They’d just undressed each other far too many times for Methos’ body to forget that. When they were standing face to face like this and Methos was unbuttoning Mac’s shirt or jeans, Methos was almost grateful for his companion’s mental fugue, for it spared him the embarrassment of having Mac note the painful hard-on that Methos got every single day at this exact moment.

This afternoon was no different. Mac was standing there beside the bed right where he’d been led, staring past Methos’ right shoulder at MacLeod only knew what in the sun-drenched bedroom. The minute Methos reached for the little white plastic buttons on that old blue denim shirt, his cock sprang to attention like an aching, organic lead pipe.

Deep breaths didn’t help, for they only carried Mac’s sweet scent. It filled Methos’ whole world, as it always had.

His fingers shaking with suppressed tension, Methos undid the final button on Mac’s shirt and slipped it off those broad shoulders, laying it gently on the abandoned wheelchair beside the bed.

He could barely breathe as he reached for the copper button of MacLeod’s jeans. Knowing that he needed to get himself under control fast or he’d be in deep trouble, Methos performed the reality check that had yet to fail. At that moment when he found his control the weakest, he looked into Mac’s eyes. The sight of that eerily unfocused gaze staring off into the middle distance as Methos pulled the man’s pants off him, cooled Methos’ ardor better than a cold shower.

There was a time when his standards hadn’t been quite so high, when he wasn’t picky if a sexual partner were conscious or even willing. Remembering what he would have done to so docile and gorgeous a man chilled Methos, for there was a part of him that still wasn’t certain he had the strength to resist the lure of this beloved body.

In his usual state of twisted balls, Methos slid the briefs and socks from Mac’s body, then rose to stare at the naked Highlander. Mac was no less a work of art now than the night he’d first come to Methos’ bed. All the scars of MacLeod’s captivity were healed now. His body was its usual feast of soft-furred skin and well-formed, if thinner, muscle, a sensual delight just to gaze upon, let alone touch…providing one could ignore the vacant gaze above. 

This was Hell, Methos realized, to have something so physically perfect in all ways, and so mentally not there.

Sighing, he took hold of Mac’s elbow and guided the Highlander face down onto the blue duvet. Mac didn’t resist…he never did. The younger Immortal settled down on his stomach, turned his head towards the window and just lay there awaiting Methos’ pleasure.

Gazing down at the straight, strong lines of Mac’s back, the perfectly shaped globes of his partner’s buttocks, and the dark mystery of the crease between them, Methos swallowed hard. Mac’s legs were even splayed apart in unconscious invitation. And Methos had never been any good at resisting temptation, not ever.

There was a part of Methos that wondered if Mac would even know if he were being fucked, if someone could mount him and have his way with him while Mac dreamed on with the same oblivion he gave to his baths and toiletry. Nothing penetrated that fugue. Methos doubted that violation would, either. 

A good man would not be entertaining these kinds of thoughts, Methos told himself as forbidden desire licked through him. He’d never wanted anything more than he did Duncan MacLeod. To have his friend so malleable was a torture the likes of which Methos had never endured…only…

Mac wasn’t there on that bed. All that was there was the beautiful, empty shell that had housed his spirit. The Duncan MacLeod Methos loved so desperately was off with the fairies someplace. And while his lover was gone, the temple that housed his spirit was inviolate. Methos would cut his own balls off again before he would allow himself to violate the mindless trust this man gave him. 

Just because a vulnerability existed, it did not give one the right to exploit it, Methos reminded himself. There were a million reprehensible things a man could do that no one would ever know about. It was the act of choosing not to indulge those baser instincts that separated the civilized man from the savage beast Methos had once been. He knew that in his heart and soul, even if his cock were a little slow on the uptake.

When he was certain he could touch Mac without losing control, Methos picked up the plastic bottle of balsam scented body oil and slicked his hands up.

He started at Mac’s shoulders. Beginning with gentle pressure, he kneaded and rubbed those dense muscles until he’d worked them soft. Only then did he start working his way down Mac’s spine. He dissembled each vertebra in a dance his fingers had been working on bodies since he was a very small child. The muscles here were still not loose enough, but they were nowhere near as cramped as they’d been when Methos had started this therapy in November.

As he got to the small of Mac’s back, where Methos suspected his friend still had the most discomfort, and began to carefully rub there, Mac arched his hips down into the bed, making a small, pleading sound. It was the first vocalization Methos could recall Mac making since his rescue.

The unexpected movement and sound froze Methos. Normally, Mac laid here like a corpse while Methos massaged him. This was the first instance Mac had made anything other than an autonomic response. Hoping that he wasn’t hurting, Methos continued to manipulate that spot right above MacLeod’s coccyx, working the tense area until it seemed more pliant.

He moved lower then, kneading the globes of Mac’s butt until they were warm to the touch. MacLeod’s thighs were a reservoir of tension. Methos worked the piney balsam oil into those tight hamstrings, concentrating on the thick-downed flesh until the muscles below felt malleable as butter. A few minutes at the calves, and Methos’ session of daily torture was finally over. 

Methos couldn’t resist the sardonic thought that before this was through, he was going to have more self-discipline than a saint. Of course, most of the saints he’d heard about didn’t have a priapismic erection fighting its way through the front of their pants like he did right now.

Well, a five-thousand year old man should have a pretty good idea how to deal with something like that, Methos reflected. Stars knew, he was certainly getting enough practice at it these days. Resigned to the lonely comfort of his right hand that would follow this session as it had every one before it, Methos paused long enough to roll Duncan over onto his back.

Methos was reaching for the quilt at the foot of the bed that he usually threw over MacLeod to keep his friend warm while he was off dealing with his problem when something completely unexpected stopped him mid-reach.

Mac was sporting an erection that would give his own a run for its money. It had been so long since Methos had seen his lover’s body aroused that for a stunned moment, he could only stare at the flaming red organ, as distracted by its beauty as by its state. For almost three months now, he had been caring for MacLeod. Not once in all that time had Mac’s penis been anything but unremarkably flaccid during these sessions, but this…the flaring cock looked almost painfully engorged.

Hope sharp as MacLeod’s katana blade sliced through Methos. His shocked gaze darted to Mac’s face. Mac was responding! Mac was back! Mac was…

Mac was the vacant eyed zombie Methos had been tending since Samhain, Methos sadly acknowledged, almost unable to bear the disappointment. The only changes in MacLeod were the perspiration droplets beading Duncan’s brow and the tighter set to his features, but his beautiful brown eyes still bore that unfocused glaze, which was especially chilling in a sexual situation. The erection was just a physical response to being touched so intensely. It was no more significant than the hard-on Mac sometimes sported for a few minutes in the morning before he peed.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t uncomfortable, Methos thought. And, perhaps it wasn’t so insignificant, after all. Normally, Mac didn’t respond to anything. If his body were reacting to being touched, then maybe there was some healing going on here that Methos couldn’t see.

Methos wanted nothing more than to reach out and ease Mac’s need, but every medical ethic he’d ever adhered to screamed against it. He had no more right to go fondling MacLeod’s erection than some orderly in a hospital would. MacLeod was not in a position to give his consent and without it…well, without it he’d be nothing more than a pervert copping a feel. The fact that he wanted to touch Mac more than life itself made his motives completely suspect. He had no objectivity here. Methos knew he should get up and leave, only…this was the first direct response Mac had had to outside stimuli. And, beyond that, Duncan was hurting. As Methos sat there an impotent witness to his lover’s need, the lines of strain in that normally blank face deepened.

A new thought occurred to Methos. If his touch had brought Mac this much closer to the surface, would his ignoring this need drive Duncan further into himself, the way his torturous captivity had?

Undecided, Methos faced down his morals. He knew it was wrong to even think of touching Mac while he was out of it like this, but…as had happened many times in Methos’ centuries of medical practice, there came a point where ethics and compassion came into conflict.

As ever, Methos made the only decision he could live with. He wasn’t Duncan MacLeod. When Methos sat alone on cold winter nights, having done the right thing was of no comfort to him, for he lived in the gray zone where what was morally right wasn’t always the most humane decision. He’d spent so many years inflicting hurt that he found it impossible to resist easing pain where it was within his power. He knew it would never right the wrongs he’d done in his violent adolescence, but anything that reduced suffering had to have meaning and was, therefore, the preferable path, even if it might be seen as morally wrong.

Knowing that he might well be damning himself here, that when MacLeod returned to his senses, he might take umbrage at this liberty – and rightly so – Methos reached out and collected that moist, hard organ into his palm. It sprang to life at his touch as it had done a thousand times before, expanding in size to truly impressive proportions.

The scent of Mac’s musk grew stronger, overshadowing even the fragrant balsam body oil that flavored the air.

Flavor…how Methos had missed Duncan’s distinctive taste. He knew what every inch of this luscious body tasted like, but the part he had missed only slightly less than his lover’s kiss was the tangy flavor of Mac’s arousal. He debated for a heartbeat, and then lowered his head. What mattered it if he got Mac off with a hand job or a blowjob? The results would be the same.

Ten months…it had been ten months since he’d sampled this flesh. Mac’s salty taste burst onto his tongue and mouth, exploding through Methos like a narcotic. His entire body reacted to that sensual flavor, crying for more, longing for everything. 

Methos made a play for control and just barely managed to get himself in line. This wasn’t about him. It was about Mac. His loose ethics would allow him to offer his lover this comfort, but they wouldn’t condone Methos doing anything more than what was needed to give MacLeod release. So, as tempting as it was, he did not kiss those lips or lick that throat. He just kept his mouth busy fellating that incredible cock…and, gods knew, that was enough of a gift.

Methos felt like his blood were on fire as he kept his jaw stretched and paid homage to that powerful organ. His own cock about to disintegrate from the strain of resisting temptation, Methos pressed himself into warm space between Mac’s right hip and the mattress and just sucked for all that he was worth, loving that he was finally able to give Mac something he needed, something that MacLeod might be aware of.

Though, to be honest, Mac was far too quiet for this to ever be mistaken for their normal love-play. There were none of the moans, groans and hoarse exclamations that normally filled their bedroom at night. Duncan was accepting Methos’ service as silently as he did everything. But the Highlander’s cock was completely attentive, and right now that was all that mattered to Methos.

He was lost in the wonder of it all when something unexpected totally focused Methos. It had been so long since they had made love that Methos had almost forgotten what that weird energy link that formed between them felt like. So, when it appeared here in this pale imitation of their normal intense unions, it took him completely by surprise. There had been a romantic part of Methos that had almost believed that the link was caused by their souls wanting to touch each other, but since Methos couldn’t say with any certainty that MacLeod even knew he was here, let alone recognized him, that theory didn’t seem to hold water.

At first Methos tried to ignore the power vortex. He had too vivid a recollection of the last time they’d explored the channel, when Mac had…entered Methos’ soul the night after he’d met Longford’s challenge on that bridge and nearly lost dominion of himself to Death. Mac had viewed that joining as a mind-rape afterwards. Though Methos, who had been raped more times in his life than he could possibly either count or remember, hadn’t seen it that way, Mac’s inability to take no for an answer and hold back had frightened him. 

That connection bared too much. There was no lying on that level and no hiding, which he supposed was fine for a hero like MacLeod, but for someone like Methos…no matter how much Mac insisted that his past wouldn’t change anything, there was a part of Methos that knew that this champion of justice would despise him once Mac saw his crimes firsthand. So, those three weeks following Longford’s challenge, before Mac’s abduction, Methos had avoided making love with Mac.

That this connection would show up now when MacLeod had all the animation of a 

Mr. Potato Head doll was startling. Methos didn’t understand why it should be here. He’d made love with dozens of Immortals throughout his life and only with Myrddid had there been even an echo of this…and it had been nowhere near as intense with his master. But here it was now with the practically brain-dead Duncan MacLeod, just as strong as it had been their last time together. It made no sense…not that much in Methos’ life ever had.

His choices were plain. He could ignore that seething energy matrix and carry on with what he was doing, restricting their contact purely to the physical, or he could overcome his demons and plunge in and find out once and for all just what the hell was going on in Duncan’s mind. Put like that, there really was no choice, Methos wryly acknowledged.

Taking a deep breath around that powerful cock he was still worshipping, Methos closed his eyes and followed the energy currents to waters he’d never explored before. He’d been less frightened when he’d set out in that tiny wooden rowboat with Brother Aiden and the rest of the monks on his trans-Atlantic crossing. 

The passage was easier than he expected. One moment Methos was there dithering as he tried to screw up the courage to take the plunge, and the next…the next thing he knew his epidermis and neural network had expanded two-fold and he was getting the blowjob of his life.

Methos gasped at the hot suction around him: so moist, so good, so perfect….

One thing was beyond question - Mac was certainly responding to what they were doing like any healthy male.

Methos made a conscious effort to expand his awareness, to touch something more than mere sensation, to find what Mac was thinking and feeling on an emotional level. This was slightly more difficult than just crossing over, for it required an opening up on his own part as well, but once Methos made the reach….

He was someplace else. Instead of any of their cottage’s cozy bedroom’s furnishings, he found himself staring at a thatched roof. Methos blinked in surprise, then moaned as the mouth working his cock increased its suction. There was a strange, musky scent in the air that brought a barn to mind. But barns didn’t have thatched roofs….

Trying to get his bearings, Methos forced his gaze from the intricate webwork of the thatching and glanced to his right, where two pairs of soulful brown eyes stared back at him out of bovine faces as the cows placidly continued chewing their cud as the humans not ten feet away made passionate love.

What the…? Cows hadn’t been kept indoors during Duncan MacLeod’s life. That practice had stopped a full millennium before, at least.

Confused, Methos turned his gaze to his companion. She was a beauty, there was no getting around that. Her sandy brown curls were wild and long, her peaches and cream cheeks flushed as her full mouth paid homage to that long shaft. She was full breasted and full in another way, Methos realized as he stared down at her unmistakably pregnant stomach. Another week or two, and she’d come to term, the doctor in him noted. 

She raised her head from its service and smiled down at him with so much love in her expression that it took Methos’ breath away, “Our son will be just like his father, brave and strong, Owen.”

She was speaking Irish, Methos recognized, and not the kind they spoke in Erin nowadays, but a tongue Methos hadn’t heard in nearly two thousand years.

A warm rush of pride and joy suffused him. It was coming from Mac, Methos realized. Reaching out on a mental level, Methos tried for the first time to see what his lover was thinking.

One word filled MacLeod’s entire universe at that moment. _Bree_.

“I love you, Bree. He’ll be the finest warrior our world has seen, brave as Cu-Chulainn,” Mac declared in that same defunct Irish dialect. “Ah, Bree…”

It was only as she started to lean down to complete her task that Methos’ eyes focused on a chilling anomaly. Theoretically, since he was in Mac’s mind, presumably viewing whatever Mac was thinking, he should have been looking down at Duncan MacLeod’s body at that point.

But the cock she was absorbing was far thinner and nowhere near as meaty as Methos’ lover’s, and, most shocking of all, the wiry pubic curls at its base were the brightest, most carrot top red Methos had ever seen. 

He climaxed as soon as her hot mouth engulfed him…coming in three realities. The redhead receiving the blowjob shot his bolt, as did Duncan and he. The world spun insanely out of control for that eternal moment of orgasm. And then the energy vortex snapped closed, leaving Methos feeling alone and isolated in his own body.

Swallowing the last traces of Mac’s sperm, Methos slowly raised his head, shivering as he stared down at MacLeod’s blank features.

Not blank, he corrected himself, but focused elsewhere. Methos took a deep, Mac scented breath, and tried to make sense of what he’d just seen. If he didn’t know any better, he’d swear that mind he’d touched wasn’t even Mac’s, which of course was blatantly impossible. Who else could it have been, if not MacLeod?

Mac was obviously lost in some fantasy world he’d created during his entombment – a fantasy world where he lived with cows in his cottage, had a wife about to give birth and spoke a dialect of Irish that had been dead for two thousand years. The verity of the vision was astounding, almost too accurate to be mere imagination, but Mac was something of a historian. MacLeod had certainly read about the ages when his people and cattle had lived together. The only thing that Methos couldn’t quite make gel was Mac’s knowledge of that ancient tongue…but then he recalled how close Duncan had been to Sean Byrnes. The dialect in Mac’s fantasy had been Sean’s native language. It was entirely possible that Byrnes had taught it to Mac the same way Darius had taught the Highlander to read ancient runes. Yes, Methos decided, that made sense.

But it was still weird. They’d never really discussed their fantasies, but Methos had always imagined that Duncan’s would be more…heroic than that. But, then, there was a part of every Immortal that longed for the simple life, that ached to have the same limits and recompenses that mortals did – a span of years that was measured in decades, not centuries, the chance to grow old with your mate and watch your family grow and expand, the knowledge that you were part of a time and truly belonged, not just passing through it…yes, Methos could almost understand Mac longing for all those things, but…what was that _Owen_ bit? If this were a simple fantasy, why would Mac go to the trouble of re-naming himself?

Shaking his head, Methos gazed at his lover. Mac’s eyelids had drooped closed and he was sleeping the sleep of the well sated. Methos could feel his own features softening as he took in the aching innocence of those relaxed features. 

Well, if nothing else, he’d been able to provide Mac with the release he’d so needed, Methos reflected. Bending down, he brushed a chaste kiss on that smooth brow and reached for the quilt at the bottom of the bed. After covering his naked friend, Methos slipped from the bed.

He stood there watching Mac sleep for a long time, trying to process everything he’d seen in their union. It was only when the disgusting state of his underwear became too much to bear that Methos turned to the dresser to fetch a fresh pair and remove the ones with the cooling come that he was wearing, then made a side trip to the bathroom to wash up.

Once he was dressed again, Methos headed for the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and further study his puzzle.

*******************

There was a storm raging outside. The lightning flashes were bright as a Quickening, the thunder deafening, the rain pelting down so hard that it would leave bruises on the skin were a man fool enough to venture out into it. The frightening weather was the first thing Methos took note of as he opened his eyes to ascertain his surroundings.

The second thing to come to his attention was that the storm pounding outside had nothing on the one blasting through his body. His heart was thundering louder than the thunderbolts the Kyklopes had made to protect Zeus. His blood was bubbling like magma, his cock a burning rod of iron….

Realizing that that last allusion was probably an anachronism, for everything about the feel of this place was telling him that he was not in the Iron Age, Methos stared around him and tried to place his surroundings. The huge tent that was ominously flapping in the gales could have been Kronos’, but the leader of the Horsemen had never worn polished bronze body armor such as that standing in the corner, nor had he made use of the parchment maps and charts Methos could see rolled on the nearby campaign table. Methos could just make out the writing on the nearest…classical Latin. Staring past the table, Methos saw the eagle on the banner and recognized it as the emblem of Imperial Rome.

He breathed a sigh of relief. Not Kronos’ tent. Though, he should have known by the quality of his arousal that he wasn’t in his former leader’s clutches again. He had never been this relaxed or excited in Kronos’ bed. 

Just whose bed Duncan’s fantasy life had propelled them into now was the question. Bracing himself, Methos made the final connection, reaching out to touch Mac’s mind. This had become the hardest part of their daily exchanges, for the mind Methos touched was never the same on any two days. Because he reached his destination at the height of passion, the feelings were generally the same, but the stray thoughts that would filter into the sensual focus never matched.

This afternoon was no different. Yesterday Methos had found himself in an easy-going farm boy. Today….

He gasped in a breath at the rush of possessive lust that flushed through him. There was a hardness, an indulgent selfishness here that he’d never felt in Duncan before. But Methos realized that he wasn’t the least bit unfamiliar with the sensation. He’d felt these same fierce drives millennia ago, when Death had staked his claim on the bodies of those who hadn’t perished on his sword. _To the victor belong the spoils…._

Unwilling to submerge himself too deeply in that mindset, Methos pulled back mentally. There was nothing of Duncan in that alien personality. If Methos didn’t know better, he’d swear he’d just touched a stranger’s thoughts.

Calming himself, he tried to fit the last pieces of today’s puzzle together. This was one of his favorite parts of this weird experience, working out the who, where and what of each fantasy. He had two of the pieces – a Roman general in his campaign tent. All he needed was Mac’s paramour of the day to complete his puzzle.

Methos turned his gaze from the familiar accoutrements of a general’s campaign tent and sought out the person whose mouth was giving him such incredible pleasure. So far, the sexual act he was engaged in when he arrived was the only consistent factor in the fantasies Methos had been popping into for the past few months. The energy matrix that allowed Methos’ consciousness to cross over into MacLeod’s always seemed to land him in a sexual fantasy where someone was performing fellatio on whatever persona the Highlander was now imagining himself to be – the same act Methos was performing on Duncan back in their cottage. The events would proceed from there, but this was always the jumping off point.

This afternoon’s lover was a blonde with a small head and hair so long and bright it shone like molten gold.

“Enough,” Methos felt himself saying in gruff, colloquial Latin, the lingua of the upper class. This was one of the strangest parts of co-habitating with Duncan’s mind, hearing himself say something or feeling himself do something Methos had no conscious input in determining. His hand reached out to run coarse, calloused fingers through that silky golden cascade.

The bonde’s face lifted up from Methos’ groin…and the blood just about turned to ice in Methos’ veins. Tonight’s fantasy wasn’t Mac’s usual buxomly beauty or the rarer brother-in-arms. Tonight Methos found himself staring at a naked youth. The boy couldn’t be more than ten, if that, he realized, his horrified gaze taking in the childish genitals on the kneeling boy and the gruesome brand on the youth’s left buttock. 

Branded like a cow, treated with less care than the livestock, that was the life of a slave in the early days of Imperial Rome. Taking in the boy’s age, Methos realized that this one had probably been servicing men for a good six years already.

He’d lived in this time and been a part of this age once, Methos reminded himself, telling himself that it was no big deal that a full grown man would be having sex with a boy whose secondary sexual attributes hadn’t even developed yet. The strong ruled and the weak served. It was the way of the world. No big deal, except…he’d been in this unfortunate child’s shoes at the same age and, as much as his jaded conscience might refute it, it really was a big deal…for the child.

How often had he worn that same forced smile? This child was no different than he’d been – eager, no, downright frantic to please his master…because the consequences of failing to do so were always worse than the pain of penetration, even at the age of six or eight. 

This was why when with the Horsemen, Methos had preferred to give their victims death rather than take them captive. Kronos and Kaspian had been highly amused by his inability to fuck the young ones, but Methos’ reticence went beyond mere squeamishness. His mortal past never lay quiet when he witnessed a man taking a child. Without fail, his dreams would take him back to his first owner’s tent, to the years of sadism and degradation that had birthed his alter ego, Death.

How many millennia had it been since he’d been subjected to this kind of indulgence, Methos wondered, a sick feeling growing in him as his left hand reached out to fondle the boy’s hairless pubes, while his right hand possessively stroked the left buttock that was smooth as a baby’s behind. 

And well it should be, Methos wearily recognized that the boy couldn’t have been out of diapers for more than handful of years. But the youngster smiled suggestively up at him and spread his legs so that Methos’ probing fingers could pierce him, the boy’s natural acceptance of these inappropriate touches bespeaking his long experience in the art of pleasing a man. Perhaps this one had less fear of his master than most Methos had seen or treated in his capacity as healer, but Methos, who had been here himself far more times during his childhood than he cared to remember, could see through that smile and read how the boy was bracing himself for what was to follow.

It was all Methos could do to hang onto his breakfast. He tried to tell himself that this child wasn’t him…but he kept remembering what it felt like to have a cock as big as a stallion’s pierce his tiny opening. Pushing his own memories down as far as he could, Methos then tried to feed himself the same lines he usually gave MacLeod to try to defend the unforgivable – different times, different rules. When in Rome, do as the Romans. But…even when he’d been a member of the Senate, where countless compatriots and scholars, whom Methos had greatly respected, had screwed the young boys entrusted to them through the patronage system or taken some misbegotten slave child to his bed as a matter of course, Methos had never done so. He’d been an anomaly in a society where a young boy with a sweet ass could rise in the Emperor’s court faster than a landed senator, where sex with children was an accepted social convention. There were times when he’d greatly insulted his hosts at some of the more grandiose banquets where everyone at the party was gifted with a virgin child, because Methos hadn’t indulged…couldn’t indulge, then or now… 

His restraint wasn’t born out of anything as high flung as morals, but because he simply couldn’t hold the contents of his stomach with those ancient memories tearing through him, as all those stony cocks had ripped his young flesh. 

But here was Duncan MacLeod, the most moral man he’d ever met, fantasizing about sodomizing a child too young to get an erection. This could simply not be happening, not with Mac. 

Methos knew this man, inside and out. While it was true that every man had his dark side and one could never predict what sexual kinks even the most virtuous man might be hiding, Methos simply could not accept that his Duncan would get off on the rape of a child – for rape it would always be where one of the participants was a slave and the word no wasn’t in his vocabulary. 

Too disgusted to remain, Methos pulled himself out before things could progress any further. He fought his way out of Mac’s skin and mind, fleeing across their energy conduit like a wanted felon. Sobbing and sick to his stomach, he quickly brought the cock in his mouth to a climax, feeling as used as he had in his first owner’s pleasure tent. He was almost unable to drink down MacLeod’s seed, so upset was he by this afternoon’s sideshow.

Raising his head, he felt the hot gush at the back of his throat that presaged disaster. Scrambling from the bed with a hand pressed tight to his mouth, Methos stumbled to the plastic trashcan in the corner, where he promptly disgorged the contents of his stomach.

Still a wimp, after all those millennia, he thought tiredly, wishing to God he’d never seen this side of Mac. It was a few minutes before he could even move. All he wanted to do was flee then, but…he had responsibilities. He couldn’t blame MacLeod if he didn’t like what he found when he entered the man’s mind uninvited.

But…had he entered Mac’s mind, Methos found himself wondering. He might never have tasted his lover’s thoughts before, but Mac had been inside his mind. Methos had gotten a feel for how MacLeod felt inside. The goodness of the man, the over-riding compassion…these were the earmarks of his friend. There hadn’t been the faintest traces of those inside that hard general.

And the fantasy itself…there was nothing in it that spoke of Duncan. Mac hadn’t been raised in an age where sex with children was acceptable. He’d been reared in a strict Christian society, where any sex outside the marriage bed was viewed as criminal. While in many cases that strictness might breed perversion, it had bred only idealism and kindness in Mac.

Even the feel of the fantasy had been wrong. When men daydreamed of the forbidden, there was a degree of unnatural excitement to their appreciation of it. They had a tendency to dwell on whatever facet of their salacious kink made it the most forbidden – someone engaging in a rape fantasy would focus on the violence, someone thinking of incest would fix on the family relationship, a pedophile on his partner’s youth….In five-hundred centuries, Methos had seen or done it all. 

Yet…this afternoon’s scenario had contained none of the rush peculiar to illicit kinks. There had been a matter-of-factness to the general’s use of that boy that no man born in a Christian age could fake. The Roman hadn’t been behaving as if he were doing anything wrong, because in his time and mind, he wasn’t. He was simply claiming his possession, with the same lustful glee Methos used to experience when he took his own captives. Though not a day went by now when Methos didn’t regret his former excesses, there had been no sense of wrong for Death at that time, either, just the exhilaration of claiming what he’d won. 

His honorable lover had never played those kinds of games, never taken partners by force or pressed captives into sexual service. Methos knew this for a fact, and if his own conviction in Mac’s character weren’t enough, he had four-hundred years of Watchers’ Reports to corroborate his confidence. 

So what was going on here? How could Mac envision something so alien to his character and life-experiences, and treat it as though it were the norm?

There was only one answer to that – he couldn’t. Methos would stake his life on the belief that Duncan MacLeod would never willingly take, or even fantasize about taking, a child to his bed. Whatever and whoever that general had been, he wasn’t Duncan MacLeod. Which, of course, inevitably led to the question of who it had been, there inside of Mac’s mind.

“What the hell is going on with you, Mac?” Methos questioned as he covered the drowsing Highlander with the quilt, still shuddering at the realism of the scene he’d just witnessed. 

Something more than just the perversion of the scene was troubling him. After a moment of staring down into Mac’s face, Methos tracked down the cause of his uneasiness. That brand on the child’s bottom had been hauntingly familiar, he realized. After another minute’s thought, he remembered. That had been the Martucci’s brand. Methos had been a guest at the family’s villa many a time. 

The Martucci’s slave brand wasn’t something that would have ever made it into a history book, Methos recognized, a cold shiver quaking through him. How could Mac have possibly invented that?

Every one of Mac’s fantasies was like that, so vivid and detailed that Methos felt like he’d stepped back into the past. Everything was there, from the stinking chamber pots to the lice and body odor of unwashed flesh. Why anyone would put that degree of reality into a wet dream, Methos couldn’t say. He knew how people these days viewed the past. Everything was filtered through rose-colored glasses and viewed like one of those damn Ren-Faire festivals that were so popular these days, where the deluded played out a courtly way of life that Methos had never encountered in that age of tyranny and superstition. While it was true that MacLeod knew better than to see the past that way, Methos couldn’t comprehend why his friend would bother to incorporate all these unpleasant details into his sexual fantasies. If Methos didn’t know better, he’d swear that what he was witnessing were memories being reenacted as opposed to fantasies, but that didn’t make sense, because like this last disturbing peepshow, every one of the events Mac was living out in his mind had happened centuries, even millennia before the Highlander was born.

Methos looked down at Mac’s face, searching for he knew not what, perhaps some clue as to what he’d stepped into this afternoon, but Mac slept on in sated oblivion. The innocence of those slumbering features was as achingly touching as ever. There was no hint that the man had just gotten off on a seedy wet dream of sex with a child.

If Methos hadn’t seen it himself, he would never have believed it.

Too disturbed to think about it anymore, Methos pulled himself from the bed, grabbed the reeking trash can to wash out, and headed for the kitchen. For once, he didn’t have to change his boxers before leaving. Today’s trip into Duncan’s fantasy life had left him feeling dirty, not sticky with spent semen as was the norm. As he sent one last troubled gaze to the slumbering man on the bed, Methos wondered if Mac had been this repulsed by the things he’d seen in Methos’ mind that night after he’d faced Longford and, if he had, how Mac had ever gotten up the nerve to return to his bed.

*******************

Methos was almost afraid of what he’d find the following day when the massage he gave Duncan once again turned into a fellatio session, but to his great relief, there were no surprises. Mac’s lover of that afternoon was a slender black woman, while MacLeod’s imagination had clothed himself in the flesh of a flabby, gentle, middle-aged mid-eastern man. Giving a mental shake of his head at the whimsies of human sexuality, Methos rode out the sex scene and those of the weeks that followed. At no time did he ever feel like he was touching Mac’s mind. In most cases, there was an undercurrent of similar personality traits, but not once in all those encounters did any of the minds Methos sampled have Duncan’s distinctive feel.

Still, in a strange way, Methos grew to look forward to those daily jaunts into Mac’s fantasylands, if fantasylands they were. More and more, Methos was beginning to doubt that Mac was creating these scenes. From the start, the cynic in him kept trying to find flaws to debunk Mac’s creations, but there weren’t any to be found. Nothing was off, ever, not the clothing, the language, or the level of technology. There wasn’t a single anachronism. The bodies peopling Mac’s visions were often not perfect, but they were always flawless examples of their age. It was a stunning, disturbing recreation of times that Mac had never seen.

Methos asked himself at least a dozen times a day why he continued to immerse himself in this bewildering montage of changing visions. A lot of his motivation had to do with working out what was going on with Mac, but just as much of what motivated him had to do with the scenarios themselves. It was like watching a porn flick that had direct feed to your nervous system. Methos never knew who or where they’d be, but it was never boring. 

A good two and a half months after that unsettling view of the Roman general and his slave boy, Methos received another shock that made that one seem mild.

When Methos opened his eyes in the fantasy this time, he was in a narrow cot. There was barely room for him and his companion, who was a long-limbed, dark haired man from what he could tell of the person crouched over Mac’s groin in the fantasy. His companion’s dark braid kept slapping Mac’s slender white belly as the man sucked at his cock. This time Mac’s pubic hair was golden blond. He could see it every time his partner raised up the cock a bit, but the man was deep-throating him and never lifted his head far enough up for Methos to get a clear look at his face in those first moments after arrival.

Trying to get some feel of the time period Mac had propelled them into this time, Methos searched the room. The stonewalled chamber was small, but comfortable. The big, gray granite blocks of stone that made up the wall made him think they were in a castle or keep of some kind. The room was clean and didn’t smell bad. The only odors in the air were the scent of sex and the whiff of smoke from the candelabra on the nightstand where one by one, the burnt down candles were extinguishing. There was a table nearby with a pile of books on it, huge old tomes with parchment pages that were written by hand. Amused, Methos realized that they could easily have been his own. In fact, the entire room had a ring of familiarity to it that was instantly comforting.

Now came the scary part. Taking a deep mental breath, Methos reached out to sample the mind of the man whose body they were inhabiting. He was used to the first blast of raw, unadulterated sex that shot through him. But tonight, it was more than that. Relieved, Methos encountered a gentleness of spirit, a…love that was familiar and had nearly an identical feel to Dunacn MacLeod’s. It was the closest to Mac he’d gotten yet, Methos thought as he sampled the degree of devotion this afternoon’s lover bore his companion. Hoping that he might at last have found some key to MacLeod’s mental whereabouts, Methos submerged himself deeper into today’s flavor of the day.

“ _Mon amant_ ,” Duncan gave a hoarse whisper, speaking in medieval French. 

The man working his cock with such incredible skill reluctantly raised his face from his prize…and Methos found himself gazing into his own pink-cheeked reflection. He wondered if his mental grin were influencing Duncan’s expression in the fantasy or whatever this was. He’d been waiting for this to happen, for his own image to show up in these daily wet dreams. That it had taken almost four months for Mac to get around to reeling him into this sensual parade had begun to dent his ego, especially since he’d had to wait in line behind lice ridden and unwashed partners. Yet, even as his amusement ran high as he stared at himself, something began to bother Methos. 

At first he couldn’t place what it was, but then he realized that it was his appearance – or rather, the fact that there was nothing out of place in it. MacLeod had only known him with short hair. While it was possible that Mac’s imagination might have supplied the fuel to create this image or Methos’ current shoulder-length ponytail might have filtered through MacLeod’s mental fugue to feed it, the accuracy of the representation was uncanny. Long hair had been the style back then, Mac would probably have known that from history. Like most men, Methos had worn his hair halfway down his back. But how could Mac have possibly known that at night Methos would plait it in a single loose braid just as Duncan’s fantasy lover was wearing now? 

Another chilling piece of verisimilitude was the fact that contrary to the popular style for adult males, Methos had hardly ever worn a beard back then. He was as clean-shaven here as he’d been in most ages.

And, perhaps most troubling of all was the fact that Mac had clothed him in exactly the type of garment he’d generally worn to bed whenever he lived in drafty castles. The laces on the front of his flowing, over-sized white shirt were undone, leaving his naked front exposed. Methos’ breath caught in his chest as he glimpsed his feet, where a pair of the ridiculous woolen booties he’d worn for countless centuries were peeking out from under the bedclothes. While it was possible MacLeod’s romantic imagination might have garbed Methos in the rather striking shirt, nobody would include grandma Jones booties in a wet dream. 

“Yes, _mon coeur_?” Methos heard himself reply.

The present day Methos froze up inside at that endearment. Duncan and he never used pet names for each other. How could Mac have possibly known that _My heart_ was a term he’d employed…in a time period when he’d worn his hair long and braided, in a room that looked frighteningly like this one, with a male lover that he would eventually lose his testicles over? For, though Methos had yet to get a clear view of the body he and Mac were currently inhabiting, he knew this place, knew this room.

But how could Mac possibly know?

While it was true enough that MacLeod had touched his mind the last time they’d made love together, this period of his life had been the furthest thing from Methos’ thoughts. He’d been trapped in his memories of the Horsemen that night, Mac couldn’t have possibly gotten this much detail from him. It must be sheer coincidence. But those booties…and that pet name…. 

Still, though hardly attractive, woolen bed socks were common in that period. As for the love name…Perhaps Mac had had a French lover who’d called him that. Yes, that made sense. He was just reading significance where none existed.

And so Methos told himself, until the body he was in reached for the dream Methos and he caught sight of the livid red scar on his own right hand. He knew that jagged burn. His tongue had traced it a thousand times. His beautiful Michel, whose beauty no one but he had ever appreciated.

That scarred hand stroked the dream Methos’ cheek and Methos heard himself and Mac ask, “Promise that you will never leave me, _mon amant_?”

_Never is a long time_ , Methos had said all those centuries ago.

“Never is a long time,” the doppelganger Methos smiled, brushing a kiss on the nearby fingers. Methos shivered. It was such a bizarre sensation to feel himself kissing himself with such passion.

“I’ve never loved anyone the way I do you,” Mac and he swore, lying back on the bed and drawing the older man on top of them, feeling their hard erections nestle together with long familiarity. This sharing a body was confusing, Methos thought, especially when the person they were addressing was his former self.

What was even more unsettling was that he could sense Michel’s thoughts and feelings now. It wasn’t just love the young blond bore him; it was the same kind of insane devotion he felt for Mac, the kind that filled your whole world and didn’t leave room for anything else.

“You’ve never loved anyone _but_ me,” that Methos of long ago corrected, just as the present day Methos remembered doing. This was one conversation he’d had cause to remember for centuries. 

Back then he’d worried that his lover would take the words as an arrogant boast, but from his weird, reversed perspective, Methos could see nothing but adoration in his own greenish-hazel eyes gazing down upon Michel. 

Gods, how he’d loved this one. Looking at how the love he felt for this man shone off his face, transforming his often-ascetic features into something too tender for words, Methos abruptly understood how Michel’s father had found out about them. And how Joe, Amanda and Grace had known about him and Mac. Apparently, he wore his heart on his sleeve.

“That’s the way I want to keep it, Adam. No one but you, forever,” Methos felt Mac and his lips vow. Methos shook inside at the prophetic statement, even as he read the uneasiness that passed through his mirror self’s eyes above him. _Listen to that warning_ , Methos silently urged. _Get up from this bed, get on your horse and put a thousand miles between you. Leave. Let him live, let him marry and have babies…let there be one less death on your conscience_.

But he hadn’t listened to his better sense then, nor did he now. Methos tried to hide away as he heard his own voice uneasily replying, “You will be lord of this land someday. You will marry and have many heirs.”

“I will never marry. There will be only you, forever,” the man whose body Mac had appropriated for his fantasy this time swore. If there had been a prophet in their bed that night, it certainly wasn’t Methos.

“You are plighted to your second cousin and you will marry her this spring,” the mirror Methos firmly reminded.

Michel, and therefore Duncan and himself, met Methos’ gaze and denied with solid steel, “I’ll not marry her. She…she cringes every time she looks upon my face. How could they force her to come to my bed?”

Michel held Methos’ pained hazel gaze as the Immortal reached out to run his finger over the tight scar tissue that was the entire left side of Michel’s face. He shivered in reaction to that soft touch along the part of his face that everybody did their best not to gawk at.

Michel had had a difficult cross to bear. The left side of his face had been horribly deformed by fire, while right side was that of an angel. Mathos remembered how jarring it had been in the first few weeks he’d been acting as an accountant here at the keep to see the difference between the handsome, milky skin on the right side of Michel’s face and the livid pink field of burns that made up his left side, but these days, Methos barely noticed the disfigurement. All he ever saw were those blue eyes, so deep and true, and the shy smile that warmed his heart. 

But he knew that he was the exception, rather than the rule. Even Michel’s father, Lord Champlain, had trouble looking upon his son’s visage for long. In all his years of living, Methos had rarely met an individual who handled adversity as well as Michel did. Though Methos was certain his perceptive friend noticed how his family and friends reacted to his scars, Michel’s smile rarely faltered, his good will seemingly inexhaustible. It was that courage that had endeared him to Methos, and the fire of the young man’s personality that had brought him to his bed.

Responding to Michel’s insistence that he would never marry, Methos said, “Marie will come to your bed out of respect and duty, for the same reasons you will go to hers. She will come to love you, _mon coeur_. How could she not? You just need to be patient with her.”

“I don’t want to be patient with her. I don’t want to have anything to do with her,” the triumvirate that was Michel, MacLeod and Methos insisted. 

“Listen to me,” the older man snapped at them, “you will stop this childishness immediately. This cannot be changed. You will not bring dishonor to your family. You will marry Marie and-”

“And what of us?” Michel cried, a dark well of despair opening up inside him at the very thought of being alone and ostracized because of his scars again. Inside his lover now, Methos got a firsthand view of how much his friendship meant to the young mortal, and how Michel truly thought he would never be loved again.

It was almost as if the Methos of that time had read that very thought, Methos realized, as he watched his own features gentle. He’d never seen himself from the outside like this before and…perhaps for the first time since he’d left Death behind, Methos found that he truly liked himself. This had been a love that he knew from day one had no chance of working out, but Michel had borne his emotional isolation with such dignity and courage that Methos had been unable to turn away from Michel when the young lord stumblingly seduced him, even though Methos had known that discovery could be worth both their lives. 

So now, when he should have been cutting ties and helping his lover detach to start a new life, Methos had been just as ensnared as his beloved. He could hear the resignation in his own voice as he responded, “What of us? We steal our love between vespers and martens now. How will that change? My room is here; you know the way to it.” 

“You…you will not leave me, then?” Michel calmed, the panic leaving his, and therefore Mac’s and Methos’, heart. 

Leave him? Methos had known it was as good as both their lives for him to remain and still he hadn’t been able to go. He saw himself swallow hard and give the answer that had doomed them both all those years ago, “If I could have left you, I would have done it the night you came to my bed. I do you no favor by staying, Michel. If we are discovered….”

“I don’t care,” Michel whispered.

“You will care when they find us. A pair of young men were boiled in lead in Riems last year….”

Michel’s scarred hand reached out to smother Methos’ words. “You are my life and I would die for you.”

“I don’t want you to die for me, Michel. I want you to live and grow stronger.”

“I could not survive without you, not now,” Michel protested. “Even in heaven. If you weren’t there…I wouldn’t want to stay, either.”

“My kind doesn’t end up in heaven,” the mirror Methos said. Looking up at himself, Methos at last understood what Mac meant when he said that he knew Methos’ pain. In all the times he’d looked in the mirror attempting to see what Duncan, Grace and others referred to, he’d seemed his usual sardonic self, even when greatly upset. But gazing up at the worried man on top of him, Methos saw the endless loss of endless years etched into his own face. He could almost read the tragedies that had formed those lines playing out behind his changeable eyes.

“They say that the Lord is forgiving,” Michel argued. “I know that his priests sometimes are not, but…I think He could forgive us our love. And if He can’t…I’d wait in Hell a thousand years or a thousand lifetimes just to touch you again.”

“Michel…”

“Promise me if you get to heaven first, you’ll wait for me?” Michel pleaded.

It was a harmless boon to give this man whose sweet love had made him feel like he belonged for the first time since Myrddid’s death. Methos recalled how easily he’d made that bargain, knowing that, should he die, he would be absorbed into some other Immortal’s lifeforce and never have to worry about keeping it. “I’ll wait for you. I swear it.”

“And I for you. I will not lose you, not for Marie, not even for life itself.”

It was here that he should have gotten out of the bed and left, Methos acknowledged. Normally, such vows were sweet-nothings, passion born of the moment, but this lonely idealist meant the words. Methos knew without doubt that if he asked this princling to leave his palace in the dark of night, Michel would have been right there behind him, trudging through the frozen countryside as they futilely searched for a safe harbor for a love such as theirs. 

If he’d cared about his lover’s future, he would have left then, Methos recognized. But he’d needed Michel as much as his friend had needed him.

So, the scene played out exactly as it had eight centuries ago. Methos’ need for this fiery, beautiful innocent had overcome both his common sense and survival instincts. He’d allowed himself to be pulled down onto the cot, where within moments he was totally lost in the delights of Michel’s ever willing flesh.

Methos felt Michel’s legs part and wrap around his mirror self’s thin waist. Both Mac and he went hard as a rock as the mirror Methos’ fingers slipped inside him to prepare Michel with a slippery ointment. And then the other Methos was sliding his huge cock up that narrow passageway, and Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod was shouting his delight with Michel’s voice as he was taken while Methos did his very best not to break down and sob...because he knew how this would end.

He’d had his cock buried in Michel just like this three days later when Lord Champlain’s priest and guards had burst in upon them and caught them in flagrante delicto. The guards hadn’t meant to hurt their lord’s only son. It was the degenerate who had led Michel astray that was their target. But Michel hadn’t lied when he’d said he’d die for Methos. 

Michel’s semen had still been a silvery, wet slick on his pectoral muscles when he’d flung himself between Methos and the captain of his father’s guard’s spear as it went for the Immortal’s chest. To this day, Methos could still see that iron pike piercing that sex-flecked skin, still see Michel’s shocked expression as the light died in those brilliant blue eyes. 

When the guards had pushed him to the floor in front of his lover’s cooling corpse and held Methos down while their captain used his knife to take Methos’ balls as a trophy for the loving father and then cauterized the wound with a torch so that the pervert would live to see a death worthy of his crime, he’d barely been aware of the mutilation. All he could see was the stunned look frozen on Michel’s dead face.

It was all Methos could think about now, which was probably just as well. There was something unnervingly narcissistic about being taken by one’s self. 

He supposed he could have fought his way clear and returned to the twentieth century while Mac finished his sojourn into the eighth alone, but Methos just didn’t have the strength for it. One of his deepest wounds had been reopened here today. While Mac was humping his way to sweaty completion, Methos just lay there and bled.

Finally, Mac finished and the vortex snapped them back into their respective bodies. 

His cheeks wet with tears, Methos swallowed the semen in his mouth, lifted his head from his lover’s lax genitals and stared down into Mac’s sleepy-lidded, contented gaze.

_Christ, all mighty_ , Methos shivered, _what the hell was going on here_?

That wasn’t a fantasy. Everything had played out exactly as it had eleven-hundred years ago. There was no way Mac could have remembered that conversation with Michel from just touching his mind last January, and even if Mac had somehow seen his love for Michel, how could he have known the details of Methos’ chamber, down to the books he’d had open on the table while Michel and he were making love? 

There was only one answer to that. The only way Mac could have had that level of recall was if he’d actually been there and the only way he could have been there was if he were one of the two people in that room.

Like Mac had been one of the people in all the ancient rooms and structures that they’d visited these past few months, all of which the four-hundred year old Highlander couldn’t possibly have personally experienced, yet obviously had. Abruptly, all those other scenarios that Methos had dismissed as an overactive imagination began to make sense. Mac hadn’t been making that stuff up…he’d been revisiting all the places he’d lived and loved before he’d become Duncan MacLeod. It was almost as though all those times Duncan had died in the trunk of that car had trapped his spirit on this crazy roulette wheel where MacLeod was trying to find a safe place to step off the spinning wheel of unending death to live for a while.

The scientist in Methos balked at the idea. But his spiritual activities of the past year had strained his rational side to the point where he would accept almost anything – magic harps, changelings, reincarnation…what was the difference? 

And…it wasn’t as preposterous a notion as he’d like to believe. Myrddid had spoken of this a time or two. Methos had been too skeptical to accord the idea the attention it deserved, and once again he was paying for his pig-headedness. 

It was said that Myrddid lived his life backwards. Methos had never understood the rumor, until now.

How often had he seen his master sitting with his harp in hands, staring off into the hearth fire with much the same blank expression Mac wore nowadays? Myrddid would always resurface with some pithy piece of ancient wisdom or magic from forgotten ages that were sometimes even older than Methos. Methos had always thought his master psychic, believing that Myrddid scried the past as he would the future in his silver bowl, but now Methos knew the truth. His master had lived backwards, just like the legends said. Like MacLeod, Myrddid had had the ability to tune into his past lives. His teacher had admitted as much to him once, only…Methos had tuned the subject out as being too fantastical…like everything else Myrddid had taught him wasn’t!

Still shaking, Methos wiped the tears from his cheeks and then turned to Mac, who might very well have been Michel as well. His poor Michel, who’d loved him more than life, and apparently beyond death as well. 

Too much in the past, Methos bent down to place a soft kiss on his lover’s brow and gently covered the sleeping man. He spent a long moment staring down into Mac’s face, searching for answers. Finally, Methos rose slowly to his feet, straightened out his wrinkled clothing…and fled to the living room to think this through logically.

***********************

“I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love…” Methos looked up from the heavy book in his hands to smile over at his own folly, Duncan, who was sitting on the couch beside him, watching the flames in the cottage’s hearth dance with the same faraway expression he’d worn for over four months now. Not faraway, Methos corrected himself, far-a-when. Mac was still shuffling through what Methos could only consider his past lives. Trying not to think about that conundrum, Methos brightened his smile and said, “I think our friend Benedick is heading for a fall here. What do you think, Mac?”

Methos knew his lover was an avid Shakespeare fan, so he was reading the familiar words to MacLeod, hoping that Mac’s love of these plays would call him back. So far, Methos had had as little success with this as anything else he’d tried, but at least he was enjoying the Bard’s use of language. _Much Ado About Nothing_ had always been one of his favorites. 

It sure beat the opera CDs he was playing every morning on the boom box Joe had brought up on his last visit. If he had to listen to one more caterwauling aria, Methos feared he’d do himself an injury.

Taking a deep breath, he read on, “…and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange--”

He broke off, freezing at the unexpected, and therefore ominous, buzz of an Immortal signature hit him. His eyes strayed to Duncan, curious to see if his oblivious friend would react to the possible threat, but Mac stared on at the fire, as unimpressed by that possible death knell as he was by Methos’ voice cutting off so suddenly. 

His sword never far from hand, Methos was armed in a heartbeat. His first impulse was to bring Mac down to the hot springs and hide him there for safety’s sake, but this was all holy ground, within and without. 

A pair of headlights flashed through the living room windows.

“I’ll deal with this,” Methos said softly to his ever-silent companion. Even though Mac probably couldn’t hear a thing he was saying, Methos went on to assure, “This is holy ground. They can’t hurt you here…and I won’t let them past me. But I think it would be best if you were not so visible from the door. Come with me. You can wait in our bedroom.”

Guiding the Highlander to his feet, Methos quickly led his lover into the nearby bedroom, sat him on the bed and smiled down at him with as much confidence as he could muster. Another Immortal arriving uninvited in the dead of night was never a good omen.

“Be back in a minute,” Methos promised, praying he would. He hadn’t lifted a sword since last January. He was as out of practice as MacLeod.

Bending down, he planted a quick kiss on the crown of Mac’s head, and then made a fast side trip to get his revolver and knife from the dresser. Closing the bedroom door firmly behind him, Methos went to meet the inevitable challenge.

He had just paused behind the front door when the knock came.

The door was too old to have a peephole, not that it would really matter what Immortal was on the other side of it right now. Whoever it was, was uninvited. It wasn’t Grace or Amanda, the only two Immortals to whom Methos had divulged their location. He knew both their signatures well enough to recognize them straight off, and, yet, there was something familiar about the presence of the person on the other side of the door. Wondering if it might be one of the Valicourts, Methos cautiously inched the door open…and froze as his eyes met the feline green gaze of the Immortal on the other side of the threshold. 

Would that all his nightmares had such a beautiful visage.

Three-thousand years…and she was still one of the loveliest women he’d laid eyes upon, the kind who could have launched those thousand ships, but hadn’t. She stood there in the cool April night, in a long gown of silver-trimmed, green velvet that hugged every one of her curves. Her long brown hair was loose and windblown. A silver pendent in the symbol of the triple goddess’ three interlocked horns rested against the peaches and cream skin that the scooped neck of her gown revealed. The power of the ancient Immortal throbbed through the night, the way the solstice’s energy had the night he’d brought MacLeod halfway back from the dead.

“Cassandra….” His tension increasing exponentially, Methos’ gaze jumped to her right hand. No sword, no gun, no knife, she was weaponless, save for the accusation in her cat eyes, and that was virulent enough to have killed a man. The absolute scorn she held him in was an almost physical assault.

He’d been working too close to the Mystery of late. He was too open these days, too vulnerable; her contempt pelted him far more effectively than her fists ever had.

Methos didn’t know what to say or why she was here – save for the obvious reason. So he quickly warned, as though one such as she could ever mistake the power throbbing underfoot, “This is holy ground. You can’t take my head here.”

The snort she gave snapped over him sharp as a whiplash. “If I wanted your head right now, you’d be dead. Where is Duncan?”

“Come to gloat over your handiwork – have you?” Methos challenged as he stared at the woman whose loose tongue had set the events in motion which had led to MacLeod being locked in that trunk for nearly a year. 

“Where is he?”

“How did you find me?” Methos asked, ignoring her question.

“How do you think?” Cassandra coldly countered.

She could have studied with Myrddid, Methos thought. A master of the unspoken, she knew how to sow the seeds of doubt, without ever openly voicing the suggestion. She knew where his thoughts would lead – to the only person other than MacLeod that they both knew.

“Joe Dawson would die before he’d say a word to you,” Methos insisted, before his mind lept to the next conclusion. A couple of years ago, he never would have voiced his next thought, but he’d been through too much since Duncan had been abducted, and Methos just wasn’t himself anymore. So, he heard himself making the next, impotent threat, “If you’ve harmed him-”

“I harm him?” she laughed without humor. “He threatened to take my head if I didn’t get the hell off his property.”

That was his Joe. Methos could hear his old friend’s voice echoing in her words. He was rather surprised that she’d kept her head. After this last year, Methos knew Joe Dawson wouldn’t have been joking. He’d have done it to protect them.

“Fortunately, one of us was there. She had an amazing calming effect on Mac’s friend.”

Grace, Methos realized. He’d seen those effects himself two weeks ago when they’d last visited.

Deciding that she hadn’t done anything to hurt Joe, Methos reminded, “You still haven’t answered my question. How did you find me?”

“If you must know, I scried you in a crystal,” she replied, her tight expression seeming to expect ridicule.

“Then why did you go to Joe at all?” Methos picked at the answer. He didn’t think she was lying, but…there was no reason for her to visit Dawson if she’d located them as claimed.

“Because ever since Samhain, every time I looked for Duncan I saw…images of the past…the ancient past,” Cassandra seemed genuinely worried here. “Finally, I stopped searching for Duncan. I remembered that Joe Dawson was his observer--”

“Watcher,” Methos corrected.

“His Watcher. That brought me to Paris.”

“And then?” Methos prodded.

“And when Joe wouldn’t tell me where Duncan was or what had happened to him, I took a chance and searched for you,” she finished. “Is MacLeod here?”

“Why are you looking for him?” he asked, not budging from the half-open doorway.

“I…before last October, I was having…horrible nightmares about him,” Cassandra reluctantly admitted. “He was trapped somewhere, screaming and dying, over and over. I saw him every night…until the screams stopped.”

Methos shivered, recalling how that frightening silence had been worse than the torture of hearing Mac suffer and being unable to help him.

“Why should it matter to you?” Methos asked. “You hardly parted as friends.”

Cassandra had left the Bordeaux hotel room that she’d shared with Mac before the Highlander had even gotten back into town the morning after Apocalypse. On the one occasion Methos had had the nerve to inquire about her after his and Mac’s reunion following the Keane affair, Mac had told him how she’d refused all contact with him.

“I’ve known Duncan MacLeod since he was a child. We were lovers. No matter how we parted, I could never wish that kind of pain on him.” 

“Oh? Then why did you direct Alexander Longford his way?” 

To her credit, she held his gaze. “He was hunting you, not Duncan.”

“Ah,” Methos said, as if that made all the difference, and, perhaps it did. She’d had no way of knowing what was between him and MacLeod. After lying to Mac and running off with Kronos, Cassandra or anyone who knew MacLeod would have had a hard time believing that the Highlander would forgive him, for all that Mac had kept her from taking his head that fateful night.

“I never thought the Macedonian would hurt Duncan,” she insisted.

“You obviously didn’t know him very well in that case,” Methos snapped at her, not in a terribly forgiving mood.

Her cheeks colored with emotion, but it could have been anger as easily as shame. Methos could see how difficult it was for her to hold a civil conversation with him. “Obviously,” was all she said, and then demanded after a long pause in which they simply glared at each other, “Are you going to tell me where Duncan is?”

From the way her gaze kept trying to peer into the room beyond him, it was fairly clear she knew.

“Why should I?” he asked, staying calm, even though she was the reason Longford had known to find him through MacLeod.

“Because you owe it to me,” she answered, cold as a steel blade against bare skin. “And because if you don’t, you will face me off holy ground.”

“I wondered when it would come to that,” he said wearily. “Mac…hasn’t been himself lately. I’ve been taking care of him for the last six months. If you take my head, that responsibility will fall on your shoulders. Unless you want his head as well?” he checked.

“I’ve never wanted Duncan’s head. I couldn’t! Ever!” Cassandra insisted. Though, Methos noticed she made no claims about not wanting his.

Methos believed her as far as Mac was concerned, but still…it wasn’t his nature to accept things on faith. He still had to probe until his conscious mind were convinced.

“If you were so concerned about MacLeod, why has it taken you over a year to look for him?” Methos challenged, wishing to God that she’d found Mac when she started looking, even though it would have taken his friend out of his life for a time. At least Mac’s suffering would have been reduced…and he mightn’t have been so mentally damaged by his ordeal.

“I’ve been searching for him for a year and two months,” Cassandra said, sounding defeated. When Methos made no comment, she explained as though speaking to someone who knew nothing of such things, “The work I do, it requires a certain…mental balance, a calmness that I was unable to obtain…because I was still too angry at him for letting you live.”

“And now? How can I be certain you’re not here to finish what Longford started and take both our heads?” Methos didn’t believe for a moment that Mac was in any true danger from her, but as for himself…what he’d done to her three-thousand years ago was enough to make even the sanest person lose it enough to take a head on holy ground.

“My sword is in my car. It will stay there,” Cassandra said slowly, angrily, in that lovely, deep, vaguely British voice that was a charm in itself, in all senses of that word. “I just…I need to know what happened to Duncan.”

“You want to know what happened to him?” Methos couldn’t keep his resentment from flavoring his response. “Your friend Longford hired some goons to shoot down Mac and his student Ritchie outside his home. They took Ritchie’s head, which forced Mac to take one of his closest friend’s Quickenings. When the lightshow stopped, his mortal attackers stuffed Mac in their trunk, drove him to an abandoned warehouse outside of Arronville and left him there. For eight months – in the trunk of a car, with no food or water. That’s what happened to him.”

The pain in her face as her eyes squeezed shut made him regret his cruelty. He knew fully well that he was the last person on this planet who had the right to go throwing stones. What had she ever done that could ever equal Death’s transgressions? The most he could accuse her of was wanting revenge upon himself, and, who could blame her? Certainly, not he, who knew exactly how badly he’d abused her.

“I’m sorry,” Methos offered when her eyes didn’t immediately reopen, “that was uncalled for. Duncan is inside. Come on in. It’s getting cold out here.”

That got her attention. Cassandra’s eyes snapped open and she stared at him as though she didn’t know who he was. As she stepped closer, her gaze slipped down to the sword he still held in his hand. 

His nerves stretched to the breaking point, he slowly pointed his blade towards the ground. Stepping back, he propped his weapon against the wall inside the door and motioned her inside.

He couldn’t imagine how much courage it took for her to enter this place alone with him, unarmed, with all their ancient history heavy between them. She knew fully well what he’d been. Death would have had no problem with knocking her out, carrying her off holy ground and then raping her until she was too sore to walk. Just the thought of some of the things he used to do made his stomach lurch, the way it usually did when he remembered how he’d been prostituted in his childhood. 

He didn’t want her here, didn’t want those memories moving through him, but…she was here and he was going to have to deal with it.

“Duncan is in here,” Methos said, leading her to the bedroom. He opened the door and stepped inside first, so as not to intimidate her by walking behind her; though, gods knew, she wasn’t a woman who was easily intimidated, else she would never have ventured here alone. Once within the room, he stepped to the side, where he would remain within her peripheral vision.

It was no surprise to see that Duncan was exactly where he’d left him, sitting on the edge of the bed, his right profile to the door. He could almost see Cassandra reacting to Mac’s lack of response at her arrival. 

At first, she was completely focused on the silent Highlander, but Cassandra hadn’t gone three feet into the room when she stopped dead in her tracks and stared over towards the bureau where their empty suitcases and the unused medical supplies were still stacked. 

Wondering what nefarious accusation she was about to make, Methos eased slowly towards Mac, making no sudden moves, but…she didn’t seem to be paying the least bit of attention to either of the other Immortals in the room. Her narrowed green gaze was focused on the dresser.

“What’s over there?” Cassandra asked after a moment, almost seeming afraid to step any further into the room.

“What?” Methos questioned.

“What is in that brown leather travel bag beside the green duffel bag?” Cassandra demanded.

He couldn’t help but shiver. She was pointing at Myrddid’s harp bag. Methos had known from her Chronicles that she was considered a witch. But it had been fifteen centuries since he’d met anyone with this degree of true sensitivity. 

Myrddid had always had reactions like this. He’d enter a room and, before he could relax, he’d need to see whatever magical or sacred objects inside that had set off his psychic alarms. 

“It’s…just a harp. It belonged to a friend of mine who’s been dead fifteen-hundred years.

“May I see it?” Cassandra asked, still not moving into the room, for all that she’d searched for Duncan for over a year.

She was just like Myrddid, Methos recognized, unable to enter a space until she knew what powers held sway there, whether it would be safe for her to stay. Methos couldn’t count the number of times he and his master would have to set off into the pouring rain or a blizzard after trying to shelter in a place that contained objects or even ley lines that Myrddid considered dangerous to interact with.

“Of course,” Methos agreed, not quite sure why he found this odd request comforting.

Bracing himself to touch the instrument, Methos went to the other side of the room, retrieved the bag, and then knelt down on the Oriental rug to carefully unwrap it. Once it was unveiled, Methos left it sitting on its sheepskin, then backed over to the bed so as not to be hulking over Cassandra while she examined it. If she would even chose to. There was every possibility, she might leave…which he had wanted her to do since he’d opened the front door, but now wasn’t so certain. 

Myrddid had been the most powerful healer he’d ever met. When Darius had killed him at Paris’ gates, his master had been over four thousand years old. But he’d only been practicing the healing arts for two of those four millennia. Cassandra had been working with the Mystery for all of her three-thousand years. Methos would never have thought of this before, but now that she was here, she was the closest thing he was going to find to someone of Myrddid’s caliber of power.

Standing motionless beside the bed, trying to make himself as unnoticeable as possible, Methos watched as she slowly approached the tiny wooden harp. She knelt down on her knees beside it and placed her hands about an inch over the wood – careful not to make actual contact, Methos noted. He’d seen Myrddid do that so many times that he wasn’t even surprised.

After a few minutes she slowly withdrew her hands and then rose to her feet.

“You said this belonged to a _friend_ of yours?” her tone made it clear that she believed he’d lied to her. Or perhaps it was the idea that he could have or keep a friend that was unbelievable to her.

“My master, actually,” Methos informed.

“He owned you?” that seemed to be the only interpretation she could put to his words, if she believed him at all. 

Methos wasn’t used to being held in such disdain anymore. Not even MacLeod at his most self-righteous had been this suspicious of everything he said. But who could blame her, he reminded himself. There wasn’t anything in the man she’d known him to be that would ever have attracted Myrddid’s interest, except perhaps on an adversarial level.

“I was apprenticed to him for over eighty years and his friend for over fifty before that,” Methos said. The last wasn’t entirely true. He and Myrddid had co-existed as the only two Immortals in Artos’ court for nearly the first thirty years of their acquaintance. There had been no love lost between them in those days. They had both seemed to silently agree to avoid each other out of love for Artos, but she didn’t need to know that.

“You’re telling me that the man this harp belonged to took you on as a student?” the scorn in her laughter stung like acid.

Biting his lip, Methos gave a tight nod and whispered, “Yes.”

The laughter slowly died from her face as the truth of his words penetrated. Her gaze turned back to the harp, looking for all the world as if she were seeking confirmation from it.

After another pensive pause, Cassandra hesitantly said, “The person who owned this…he was no novice to the secret workings of the world. I can still feel his spirit echoing through this harp. He would have been able to see what you had been…the way I can smell it on you even now like a rotting corpse.”

Though it wasn’t phrased as such, it was as much of a question as an insult.

“If he knew, he never spoke of it,” Methos said, making sure he met her eyes squarely so that she would read the truth of it.

“He had to have known,” Cassandra insisted.

“He watched me orchestrate events that tore apart the world as we knew it then,” Methos reported, figuring it was better that she hear the truth from his own lips rather than get glimpses of it from her magics and then end up holding that against him as well. Methos continued with, “He…forgave me and taught me how to forgive myself. He was a great man, in every sense of the word.”

And if he’d thought this judgmental woman was in any way like Myrddid, he was sadly mistaken, Methos recognized, reading the contempt in her eyes. But…just because she didn’t have his master’s capacity to forgive didn’t mean that she didn’t have his abilities to heal. Even with Myrddid…it had taken twenty years before the emotional wounds had faded enough for them to interact again. Cassandra had never seen any side of him that would make anyone inclined to either trust or forgive very fast.

“Look, you didn’t come here for a history lesson. You came here to help Mac. Can you work with that harp in your space or do you need it…or me…gone?” Methos asked.

“It’s fine here,” Cassandra surprised him by saying.

“And me?” Methos asked.

“I’d prefer to keep you in my sight at all times,” there was nothing the least bit warm about that remark.

Methos nodded his understanding and then went to sit on the hard-backed chair in the far corner of the room, so that he would be as far as possible from her, but still within view as she finally moved to the four-poster bed to see MacLeod.

“Duncan?” she called from a few feet away.

There was, unremarkably enough, no response.

Cassandra stood still for a moment with her eyes closed. Methos heard her humming under her breath, the deep vocalization growing in volume.

“Mmmmmmm…Duncaaan….mmmmm…Duncaaaan….” it was an eerie, harmonious chant that raised Methos’ hackles, even as it upped the power in the room to astronomical levels. It was like the song Circe had sung to lure Ulysses to her island, a deep, irresistible enchantment.

To his astonishment, Methos saw Duncan’s chin slowly lift as his head turned in Cassandra’s direction. It was the first time MacLeod had come anywhere near focusing on anything external in the six months Methos had had him back.

His heart leaping with hope, he watched Cassandra walk straight up to Mac, who seemed to be looking at her, rather than through her as was his wont. She placed her hands, which were old and cronishly withered for such a young-looking Immortal, on MacLeod’s temples, closed her eyes and just hummed at Duncan for what felt like forever.

Finally, she let her hands fall from MacLeod’s face, stopped humming and took a few steps back from the bed. The power levels in the room plummeted as though turned off like a light switch. 

Mac’s blank stare had returned again, but…for the few minutes she’d been working on him, there had been something like response.

Methos couldn’t have stayed on the far side of the room then if he’d been tied there. As soon as she withdrew a few feet from the bed, he was at Mac’s side, smoothing the dark hair back on his lover’s brow, staring down into the once-again distant gaze with the first sense of true hope he’d experienced yet.

After a few minutes, he looked up to find Cassandra watching him.

The confusion in her face was clear. The abstraction that normally followed any type of spirit work was clearing from her features. After a moment of simply staring at MacLeod, she directed her gaze Methos’ way and asked, “How did he get like this? If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was bespelled.”

Methos gulped. _Bespelled_. He had screwed up…again. “When we first got Mac back from Longford, he was…comatose. I brought him here in the hopes that the hot springs’ curative powers might help him. But there was no change and…” he took a deep breath and just said it, “…and on the winter solstice I used my teacher’s harp to try to heal MacLeod.”

To his surprise, she didn’t explode on him. Instead, Cassandra looked from him to the harp to Mac on the bed, and then back at him, before echoing, “You used the harp?” in a slow tone that sounded as though she weren’t certain she’d heard correctly.

“Yes,” he waited for her justifiable censure, but she said nothing for the longest time.

Finally, she asked, “What was your spell?”

He met her unreadable gaze and said, “Mac conscious.” 

Cassandra nodded. 

“What did I do wrong?” he asked, only realizing after he’d spoken how open to attack he’d left himself.

With a sardonic lift of her arched brow, Cassandra answered, “We don’t have time to belabor the wrongs you did historically. As for what you’ve wrought now…wrong isn’t the right word. I believe you’ve somehow managed to separate his body and soul. You forced your will upon him with your powers. Duncan is conscious, as you willed it. However, he wasn’t ready to return yet. Whatever spiritual issues he was working out were unfinished when you tried to force him back, so…I think he has separated himself from this plain. I think he’s gone off to find peace in another realm.”

Methos stared down at the floor, as disheartened as though she’d told him he’d killed Mac.

After another moment’s consideration, Cassandra said, “His energy level is extraordinarily high for an Immortal who expended so much energy dying and reviving for eight months straight. I know how powerful he was after Bordeaux, but…he shouldn’t be this strong, not now, not after all that.”

_Stars, but she was good_!

Wondering how she would respond to what he was about to tell her, Methos hesitantly explained, “When I arrived at the warehouse where Longford was holding Mac, the Macedonian had MacLeod strapped to a guillotine – to ensure that I wouldn’t resist Longford’s taking my head--”

“Which you did, of course,” Cassandra interjected, her expression making it clear what she thought of him.

Methos shrugged. “I wanted both Mac and myself to live. When I defeated Longford,” he purposefully did not mention Dawson’s interference, for he had no idea how close a relationship his former victims had had, and he didn’t want Joe taking any flak for saving their lives, “Mac was very rough physically, as well as completely unresponsive mentally. I thought…it doesn’t matter what I thought. What I did was strap Longford to the guillotine and then lay Mac on top of him. I pulled the switch and ran. The Quickening healed most of Mac’s physical injuries, but did nothing to bring him around.”

Cassandra just nodded at that, her chestnut hair shimmering under the artificial light overhead as it played across her shoulders.

“You don’t seem surprised,” Methos noted.

“That it didn’t bring him around?” she asked. At his nod, she explained, “Mac was extremely fond of Ritchie. I never met his student, but he spoke so much of Ryan, that I felt I had. Duncan wouldn’t have found it easy to endure that forced Quickening. You know how he…”

“Broods?” Methos supplied. Were this Grace, he would have done so with a smile, but he was taking no liberties with Cassandra. He knew it was useless to try to ingratiate himself to her. She thought he was the Anti-Christ…for good reason.

“Takes things to heart,” she corrected. “I don’t know that he could live with being forced to take the Quickening of someone he was that close to, especially if he felt in any way responsible for the boy’s death in the first place.”

“So you’re saying it was being forced to take Ryan’s Quickening that made him retreat, not the ordeal he endured?” Methos asked, shivering because it was something he’d never considered, but it sounded entirely plausible.

“I’m sure the pain didn’t help any,” Cassandra said, “but…I’m sensing more guilt than fear in him.”

“You could feel him?” he asked, nonplussed, unable to understand how she could feel Mac, while he’d been _inside_ the man’s mind and found nothing but strangers.

She gave another of those slow nods.

Considering what she’d told him. Methos quietly asked, “So what you’re saying is that I probably drove Mac further away by forcing him to take another Quickening?”

“I don’t know. His mind is very active, but not…present,” Cassandra said. “I don’t know what he’s so absorbed in…what?”

Obviously, his expression must have given the horror he felt away.

Methos sighed. Had he become so transparent that even potential enemies could read him at a glance? Or was it her former association with him that gave her such insight?

“It’s my belief that Duncan is…reliving his former lives, one by one, in no particular order,” Methos reported. He didn’t want to broach this topic, certainly not with Cassandra, who would kill him for their past, let alone any present transgressions he might have committed. But withholding facts from her was the same as doing so with one’s doctor. In order to help – if she were even willing to help them – she would need to know everything he could tell her about Duncan’s condition.

“And you would know this because?” she was watching him with that inscrutable expression again.

Methos looked down at the ever-silent man on the bed, finding it easier to address what he had to say to MacLeod then to face Cassandra’s unavoidable accusation. He knew how wrong what he was doing with Mac each afternoon was. He knew how this would look from the outside…how it might even look to Mac from the inside once he was well again.

“Mac and I have…a strange kind of…emotional and mental connection that allows us to--”

“You’ve been _molesting_ him while he’s insensible?” the disgust in her voice hit him like a physical blow.

Cringing inside at her understandable reaction, one fact still penetrated Methos’ shame. Cassandra knew what he was talking about, without his having to explain, she’d understood the type of connection he was speaking about. Still, he had to deal with the most important issue first. Forcing his gaze to meet hers, he took a deep breath and quietly explained, “We were lovers for over four months before he was abducted,” Methos paused for a second, waiting for the inevitable disbelief, disgust or questions, but Cassandra didn’t even seem surprised. Taking heart from that small blessing, he continued, “When Mac was rescued, his back and leg muscles were horribly atrophied. He couldn’t even straighten out for weeks. I’ve been giving him massages and soaking him in the hot springs since we arrived here in November. Once his muscles began to uncramp, his daily massage would excite him and…I would ease his need by fellating him.”

Methos knew his face was flaming. He could feel its burning heat.

Her next question was hardly unexpected. “You expect me to believe that you’ve just…serviced him while he’s this defenseless and took nothing for yourself?”

Methos was impressed that she could discuss the subject in such civilized terms. This had to be hard for her. She was, after all, talking to the same man who’d raped her while she was defenseless. Why should she believe he’d be any different with Mac?

“I want him to heal, Cassandra. I’m not about to do anything to jeopardize either his physical or emotional integrity. That…isn’t something he’s ever shared with me. I’m not about to take it from him while his mind is out to lunch.”

“You’ve done it before,” she sneered.

Though it was hard, he held her stare. “Not in three thousand years, I haven’t. If you don’t believe me, you can check him out yourself.”

“What point would there be? Immortals heal too fast for there to be any lingering damage,” Cassandra reminded.

Methos flinched at the word damage, remembering a time when no one rose from his bed unbruised – if they rose at all. Feeling almost as low as she thought him, Methos quietly reminded, “There is other physical evidence that can be checked for. You won’t find any. Beyond getting him off when he’s aroused, I haven’t violated his trust.”

Oddly enough, in the staring match that followed, it was Cassandra who lowered her gaze first.

Finally, she looked back up at him and asked uncertainly, “You say that you were only his lover since shortly before his abduction?” At his nod, she continued, “You weren’t…with him that way when Kronos found you in Seacouver?”

Methos gave a slow, negative shake of his head. Sensing that there was something motivating her question beyond idle curiosity, he queried, “Why do you ask?”

“When Mac and I were searching for you and the other Horsemen, I tried to find you in my crystal. I saw you and Duncan together that way.”

Sensing how disturbed she was by the error, Methos softly reminded, “Time is fluid, not linear. You can never know when a vision is happening. Believe me, if I’ve learned anything these last few weeks, it’s that.”

He could see the visible start she gave. After a moment she cautiously asked, “What do you mean – _after the last few weeks_?”

“Every day I touch his mind, it seems that Mac is somewhere, _someone_ different. There’s no order to the timelines Duncan is traveling. One day, it’s Imperial Rome, the next Bronze Age Ireland.”

“How can you be certain he’s not imagining all this?” Cassandra questioned. “Past lives don’t usually come into play with our kind.”

“Oh? My teacher visited his regularly. It was said that he lived backwards….” The quality of her shocked silence announcing the mistake he’d made, Methos held his breath and waited. He was not disappointed.

After a moment, she said, “I’ve only heard that said about one of my Lady’s chosen. You’re not suggesting that one such as he would take you on as his apprentice?”

“Do you want me to lie? My past is what it is. The good and the bad,” he felt like something was going to snap inside of him if the hostility didn’t leave those lovely green eyes. Horrified, Methos realized that it wasn’t his temper he was about to lose. Taking a deep breath, he pushed his volatile emotions down and reminded, “But it isn’t my past we were discussing. We were talking about what’s happening to Duncan.”

Cassandra seemed to force herself to focus and be civil. “I still don’t see how you can be so certain that these are memories and not dreams. The two are often hard to distinguish, even for those skilled at the craft.”

“I know they’re memories because someone I knew quite intimately showed up in them…someone who lived and died centuries before Mac was born. Everything about Duncan’s recall was perfect – the time period, the location, the person’s appearance,” Methos insisted.

To his relief, some of the hardness left her gaze. Like Myrddid, the pieces of the Mystery that were set before her to be unraveled would always take precedence to any personal issues. 

“You’re saying that you and Duncan knew the same person in this distant age?” Cassandra asked, seemingly intrigued.

Methos gave a slow, negative shake of his head, “No, I’m saying that Duncan was that person. Mac recreated one of the most important nights I ever spent with one of the most important people in my past.”

“If you have opened yourselves to the Forging, Duncan will have access to your memories while you are joined. It is…frightening what can be learned at such times.” 

“The Forging?” Methos repeated, feeling ignorant. He knew she was talking about that bizarre bond they had, for the word described what the conduit did to them perfectly – it forged them together like molten steel and made them stronger when they separated – but its name didn’t help him understand its nature.

“The connection you spoke of having with Duncan,” Cassandra said, looking at him like he was the idiot he felt himself to be. “Or did you lie of that, too?”

“No, I…it was new to us. We hadn’t…” Methos met her gaze and gave her the truth, “I was afraid of it. Mac entered my mind that way once on a night when I was too traumatized to keep him distracted, but all he got from me that night was the ancient past…my days with the Horsemen.”

“And he stayed?” she gaped.

Methos lowered his gaze. “I don’t pretend to understand him, Cassandra. He’s…beyond my ken. You and I both know that he’s too good for me.” Realizing what he’d just admitted to this enemy, Methos swallowed hard and shut his mouth.

The silence that followed was deafening. Methos waited for her to attack him, to verbally flay him alive at this show of weakness by telling him just how unfit he was to breathe the same air as Duncan MacLeod, but Cassandra astounded him by keeping her silence.

Finally, he pulled himself together and asked, “This Forging -- what is it?”

“It’s rare…very rare, possibly even unheard of in these days of the Game,” Cassandra said, studying him with an expression that made him even more uneasy than simply being with her was. “The only man I experienced it with was greatly favored by my Lady.” Methos took that to mean he was an adept in the Mystery. “He said our kind got our power two ways – either we killed or loved for it. The first was easier, so, as in all things, it was the route most of us would take. But those few with courage enough to choose the path of the Forging, those Immortals would grow exponentially with each union. I don’t pretend to understand how, but it is as if the power that makes up the Quickening within us joins together and exchanges some vital force that makes both parties stronger when they separate. That’s what I was sensing in Duncan tonight, not Longford’s Quickening.”

Methos gulped and looked away from her. When he thought he could face her again, he asked. “Can you help him?”

They were probably the four hardest words he’d had to voice in his life. To have to ask this woman he’d so wronged - this woman who wanted only to see him dead – for help was an irony beyond bearing.

Her gaze made it plain that she appreciated that fact. 

“Perhaps,” Cassandra answered.

Methos knew if he were not involved in the picture that there would be no perhaps about it. She would do whatever needed to be done for Duncan’s sake. But it was possible that her hatred of him eclipsed even her love of Duncan, whom she’d watched grow from boyhood. 

“Am I the variable in your equation?” he asked, needing to know.

She didn’t even pretend to misunderstand him. She was not so dissimilar to Myrddid, after all. “How could you not be? Your presence and interest in this makes it…difficult.”

She’d hated him longer and deeper than any woman had hated man in history…for far better reason. She wanted to kill him, or barring that, to see him suffer. And while Duncan languished like this…she knew he would suffer. Were she to cure her oldest friend, she would make her oldest enemy’s dreams come true. It was a difficult conundrum, the type of problem Myrddid had always been putting before him.

But for once, Methos had no trouble knowing what the answer to the riddle was.

He looked at this woman who should have been made a goddess three-thousand years ago, but whom he’d made slave and worse, and knew what he had to do, with a clarity of conscience he’d rarely experienced outside of Duncan’s bed.

“If you cure him, I will gift you with my head,” Methos whispered, barely able to get the words out. 

“You expect me to believe that? After you made the same promise to Longford – your life for his, remember?” 

Obviously, she’d seen a lot more than just shattered images in her crystal, Methos acknowledged.

“I swear it. You can have your revenge on me, if you but spare Duncan,” he all but begged. If that hardness didn’t leave her eyes, he would be down on his knees in another minute.

“Why should I believe that you would agree to die, especially once your lover is healed?” she challenged. The fact that a healer such as she was even considering his bargain told him how irredeemably she must abhor him. 

Not even pretending a compromise were possible, Methos gave her the truth of his heart, “This was done to Duncan because of his association with me. I can’t heal him. I have tried. I…can’t live with this on my head.”

“You could live with Death on your conscience, but you can’t live with this?” Cassandra sneered.

“I am not Death anymore. I am only Methos – a man who has made too many mistakes to be forgiven. But…he forgave me…he…loved me. And because of that, he will live. He must live. Please…don’t do it for me. Do it for that young boy you saved from Roland, the one who truly believed with all his heart that good would always defeat evil, because it had to. Do it for Duncan.”

Her face going very pale, Cassandra looked down at the handsome man on the bed, who was oblivious to the ominous deal being made not two feet away.

“If I cure him…I can have your head? No treachery? No arguments? No challenges? No fleeing?” Cassandra tested.

“I swear it,” Methos bit his lip, then added, “on his head.”

She nodded. “We have a deal.”

Swallowing hard, for he could see his death in her yes, he nodded.

Taking a deep breath, he rallied his courage. There was still the small detail of Duncan’s healing to get through before that balance would come due. And before this powerful sorceress could do anything, she would require rest.

“Come, I’ll show you to your room,” Methos said, changing the subject, for to dwell on it was madness.

“You want me to stay here…in this cottage with you?” she sounded appalled.

“It’s almost a forty minute drive to town. I know the time of night you’ll be working most of your healings. You’ll be too tired to make that drive back. Or do you think you can heal him in one session?” Methos tensed. He hadn’t thought to pay his price that soon.

“No, it will take some work,” she admitted.

“Then stay. It will be better for you to be near him, won’t it? And you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the…energies of this place.”

“You weren’t lying about studying with Myrddid before – were you?” he could see how totally astonished she was.

Not bothering to answer, he just said, “Come, I’ll get your bag from your car.” Looking Duncan’s way, he forced a smile and promised, “I’ll be right back. Sit tight.”

Trying not to think too hard about selling his soul away, Methos led his future executioner down the hall to the room closest to the bathroom that had been Grace’s before she’d started bunking in with Joe. Attempting to shake off the weirdness of the setup, he acquainted her with the accommodations as he would any guest to his home, pretending not to notice the wariness that never left her eyes for a moment. 

When he left her, he knew that he would not be the only one sleeping with a knife under his pillow tonight.

************************

For all that she’d had trouble getting to sleep, once she attained it, Cassandra slept deeply and peacefully. After being so close to him again, she’d thought to dream of Death, of her days as slave and nights as whore, but her dreams were unexpectedly peaceful that night.

When she opened her eyes on the blindingly white room the next morning, she was momentarily bewildered as to where she was. The experience was so unlike the last time she’d awoken in Death’s holdings, where the first thing her eyes had fallen upon were the stacked skulls of her people, that it was hard to believe this place was his. The room was perfectly charming, warm and welcoming, with bright white walls, pastel oil paintings and more creature comforts than her cottage back home had ever had. 

Even from where she lay in the bed, she had a spectacular view of the snow-blanketed Alps in the distance. Most of the snow had melted from the ground in the valley here, leaving the Earth a muddy brown, on the verge of sprouting.

The magic that pulsed through this abandoned abbey shivered through her as she lay there in that luxurious bed, trying to get a feel for the place. The power in the ley lines underneath these ruins was as strong and nurturing as those that ran beneath her own cottage back home, but with subtly different energies, as all such crossings had. It would take her a few days to learn their ways.

It was strange that Death would be drawn to a place like this. There was no darkness here at all, just power, the kind needed to work Great Spells, the like of which the world hadn’t known for millennia. Strange, indeed.

But, then, everything about this experience was peculiar, Cassandra acknowledged. To see Death playing caretaker to such a frighteningly changed Duncan…it was all hard to believe. Sitting up in the bed, she tried to get a fix on her housemates’ presences. They both were in the kitchen, she thought, the metallic clang of a pot confirming that.

Things had not gone at all as she’d thought they would last night. Were it not for that ancient, ringing signature of his, Cassandra wasn’t certain that she would have even recognized the exhausted man who’d opened the door as Death. Methos had looked…worn out, both emotionally and physically, like he’d taken all that he could possibly bear and that one more setback would finish him. The arrogant, handsome killer of three-thousand years ago had finally gotten his just deserts. For years, she’d wanted to see him suffer. And she’d gotten her wish. Death looked haunted - his clothes hanging off him, dark rings beneath his eyes, his hair long and shaggy, pulled tight off his stubbled face, as though a fast pony tail were all he had the time for….

And the most incredible gift of all - he’d _offered_ her his head for Duncan’s healing. That was so not a part of the man she’d known’s character that she could hardly wrap her mind around the concept. She didn’t believe him, of course, for all that he’d seemed entirely sincere. She knew that he was just playing with her mind, the same way he doubtlessly had with Longford, telling her what he knew she wanted to hear to get her to do what he wanted, for it was no longer within his power to force her to do so. He was a master manipulator. That would never change. She’d watched him play them all – herself, Silas, that devil Kaspian…even Kronos. Death had no heart, no conscience. Then or now.

But have his head, she would, one way or the other. He wouldn’t escape her this time.

It should have been a sweet thought, but it left her feeling vaguely guilty. Like everything that had happened from the moment Methos had opened the door last night, the idea of taking her vengeance sat wrong in her heart. 

It was that damn harp that had confused everything, she realized. The power that resonated through it was one of the most benign, bright forces she’d ever touched. She’d seen its owner in her mind’s eyes, the tall, white-haired Immortal who’d worked his magics through that instrument for centuries, felt his inherent goodness. A man like that would have no more truck with Death than…than a man like Duncan MacLeod would. Yet that harp cried out for Methos’ touch like a neglected puppy locked in a crate, confirming its master’s investment in Methos, while she had seen Duncan’s attachment to the fiend herself, in Bordeaux when the Highlander wouldn’t let her take Death’s head and in her crystal, where she’d seen what was between them. 

Cassandra could understand how that devil had fooled Duncan. MacLeod had a soft heart, and was therefore easy to manipulate. And, Lord and Lady knew, that devil had a persuasive tongue. 

But the harp’s owner…he would have seen through Methos’ lies. There was no fooling someone with that level of skill. Cassandra would have thought Methos was lying about his apprenticeship, except…the harp bore an echo of Methos’ psychic engrams and, though she hated him with almost too much passion to even hear his words, she, too, was skilled enough not to miss the truth when it was there before her eyes, for all that everything in her wanted to refute it…which left her mind swirling in a frustrating blend of hatred and doubt.

Sighing, because sooner or later she was going to have to face that fiend again today, Cassandra sought to calm her raging heart. The state of her full bladder made it plain that it was going to be sooner, rather than later. Giving into the inevitable, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, picked up her thick white terrycloth robe from where she’d left it at the foot of the bed last night, slipped her feet into her travel slippers, shouldered into her robe and cinched it tight at her waist, crossed to the door and silently eased it open.

Her bedroom faced out onto the kitchen. She froze at that first glimpse of her enemy through the crack in the open door, the storm of hatred pounding in her almost too fierce to be borne. She wanted his head. She wanted to rip his throat open and drink his blood, dig her long nails deep into his testicles and twist them off…

She took a deep breath, trying to stamp those feelings down. She would never be able to work a healing in this state.

As she paused there, for all intents and purposes, spying on her housemates, she took in the scene before her. Her door looked out onto the kitchen table. Duncan was seated at the far end, directly facing her, Methos was in profile, his attention firmly focused on MacLeod. There were plates of eggs, bacon and oatmeal in front of both men. Methos’ meal was totally untouched, she noticed. Fascinated, she watched as Methos fed Mac, spoonful by slow spoonful.

The fried eggs disappeared fairly fast, but the oatmeal was taking a bit longer.

“No bacon till you finish your mush,” she heard Methos warn in a voice so gentle she didn’t even recognize it.

Stunned, she saw Methos give a soft chuckle and say, “Okay, if you insist. One slice of bacon, but then you have to promise to finish your mush.”

A weird feeling of…she knew not what twisting uneasily through her as she watched Methos break a piece off a slice of bacon, pop it in Mac’s mouth, then wait until the Highlander slowly chewed and swallowed it before feeding the rest of the slice to him. Once the bacon was gone, Methos bent over, placed a soft kiss on Mac’s visibly sticky mouth, sat back and then began the arduous process of slowly feeding the apparently despised oatmeal to MacLeod.

Easing the door closed, she leaned back against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut as the hot tears gushed out. To see Duncan MacLeod so helpless was like a knife to the heart. To know that she’d had some part in making him that way was unbearable. And to observe how Death was talking to the unresponsive man, feeding him…nurturing him…was the most disturbing part of all.

Death was simply not capable of that type of caring. Death didn’t love; he didn’t cherish…he used and discarded. The thought passed through her mind that perhaps this had been a show staged for her benefit, but…she’d seen last night how Methos continually spoke to the oblivious Highlander, updating him about everything that was going on while Duncan sat there trapped in his never-never land. She knew an automatic habit when she saw one. This was obviously something the man did all day – sat there chattering away to someone who had all the awareness of a dead trout. If it weren’t Death doing it, it would have been heart breaking. As it was….

Hardening her own heart, Cassandra dried her cheeks, smoothed her tangled hair down, made sure her robe was primly closed, opened the door to its full extension, and actually exited this time.

There was no mistaking the start Methos gave when he heard her there behind him. She could see his back muscles stiffen. He broke off in mid-sentence whatever he’d been saying to Duncan as he leaned over him, persuading him to eat the oatmeal. From the tension in his tight held form, Methos almost looked like he expected her to come up behind him and hack his head off while he fed Mac.

Once Duncan accepted the current spoonful, Methos sat back into his own chair and looked up at her. The rings beneath his red-rimmed eyes were dark purple this morning. He looked like he hadn’t slept a wink all night. But his loose blue Henley and jeans were clean and neat, and he was freshly showered and shaven, as was Mac, were the damp length of his hair any indicator. Methos actually forced a smile and offered her a nervous-sounding, “ ‘morning.”

Cassandra gave a cool nod, her gaze scouring both men. Methos was a wreck, but Mac looked perfectly rested. The Highlander’s gray sweater and black jeans fit him as well as anything she’d seen Duncan dress himself in. Were it not for his vacant gaze, Duncan would have looked totally normal.

“There’s coffee in the pot, and tea in the tin on the stove,” Methos continued as though he hadn’t noticed her lack of response, which he probably had a great deal of experience doing after dealing with Mac as long as he had. “I didn’t know how you liked your eggs…”

“I don’t want you to--” she began to protest, enraged that he would try to ply her with such mindless pleasantries.

“Look,” he cut her off, softly, but firmly, “this is difficult for us both. I know you’d rather choke to death than break bread with me, but you’re stuck here. You have to eat. I’m cooking for Mac and me. There’s plenty. You may as well join us.”

Cassandra was used to employing that reasonable tone, not having it leveled against her.

When she still made no move to join them at the table, Methos sighed and said, “We’re done. We’ve got some laundry to take care of. I’ll leave you to cook your own in peace. Just leave the dishes when you’re through. Come along, Mac.”

Without another word, Methos reached down to guide MacLeod to his feet, hooked their elbows and led the Highlander into the bedroom they shared.

Telling herself that she had no cause to feel guilty, Cassandra stared down at Methos’ untouched meal for a moment before moving to the bathroom.

When she went to find them an hour later, the sound of music pulsing from below led Cassandra through the door on the far side of the kitchen as much as the fact that she’d seen Methos, laundry hamper in hand, lead Mac down there while she was eating. _Carman’s_ famous Toreador piece was blaring through the dim stone stairwell as she followed it in a downwards spiral. These stairs and whatever lay under them were clearly much older than the cottage above.

She could hear Methos’ voice under the music. The affection in it was impossible to miss as she caught him mid-complaint, “…simply cannot understand how anyone with any musical tastes what-so-ever could voluntarily suffer this dreck. Claudia Jardine was right. You must be stone deaf. She said-”

The words cut off. Cassandra knew he’d sensed her. The pale face turned her way as she rounded the final turn in the ancient stairwell confirmed it.

A little startled, she looked at the space she found herself in. Electricity had been run down to this area. Theoretically, it was a laundry room, in that a washer, dryer and folding table had been crammed along the limited wall space. But the tiny space she found Methos and MacLeod in had originally been a vestibule leading to a series of halls, were the gloomy passages beyond any indication. Mac was sitting on a long wooden table in the tiny island of light, staring at the clothes spinning in the dryer window, oblivious to both his companion and the boom box blaring at the far end of the table.

“Would you mind turning that off?” she asked, shouting to be heard over the racket; although Methos’ deeper voice had carried quite well above it.

“My pleasure,” Methos said, leaning past Mac across the table to turn it off.

“Why do you play it if you hate it so?” she asked, unable to stop herself. The selfish beast she’d known three-thousand years wouldn’t suffer even the smallest inconvenience for another, let alone inflict that kind of torture on himself.

Methos gave a self-conscious looking shrug and said, “Mac loves it. I thought it might draw him back. Did you need something?”

If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he was trying to be genuinely helpful, but she did know better, so she didn’t make that mistake.

“Duncan,” Cassandra answered. “I’d like to start working with him.”

Methos nodded and crossed to stand in front of MacLeod’s knees. Taking hold of his chin, the man she’d known as Death directed Mac’s faraway stare towards his face.

“You’re going to go with Cassandra for a while, Mac. She’s going to try to help you find your way back. I’ll be here finishing this up. I’ll come to get you when you’re through,” Methos promised, sounding like a mother sending her only child off to his first day of school.

She pretended not to notice the soft kiss Methos gave to Mac’s forehead before guiding him off the table onto his feet. Realizing that MacLeod wouldn’t come to her, she crossed to fetch him, hooking her elbow through his as she’d seen Methos do.

“Watch him on the stairs,” Methos said. “He has a tendency to stumble. If you take him outside, his coat is the long black one on the far right hook beside the front door.”

About to admonish him for his unnecessary fretting, Cassandra stopped herself. No matter what he’d been, it was clear that Methos had some genuine feelings for Duncan, difficult as that was for her to believe. He’d been taking care of Duncan non-stop for nearly six months now; it was obviously hard for him to just hand Duncan over to someone else, someone who hated him. And hate him, she did, but above all else, she was a healer. She could see the state her ancient enemy was in. If this anxious man on the verge of collapse had been a stranger, she would have urged him to go upstairs, eat something and rest for a while.

As it was, she nodded and assured him, “Duncan will be fine.”

“Yes, I’m certain he will be…with your help,” something very sad flickered through his red-rimmed eyes for an instant before Methos nodded and turned back to sorting clothes for the washing machine.

Cassandra was halfway up the stairs before she finally interpreted what she’d seen. Methos obviously wanted Mac well more than anything, but Duncan’s recovery would mean his death. Wishing she’d had better sense than to ever speak to the Macedonian, Cassandra led Mac to the front door, paused long enough to get him into his coat and don her own black shawl before she led him outside to find a place to work where she would be less aware of Methos’ movements.

They ended up in the garden. The ground was soggy underfoot from the newly melted snow, the air cold and crisp, but the sun was blazing down on them out of the bluest sky she could remember. She led Duncan to a stone bench in the center that was flanked by bare rose bushes and carpeted with dead grass. He followed her like an aging lap dog and stayed where she put him.

“Oh, Duncan,” she sighed, not understanding how Methos bore this day after day. It hurt her just to look at him like this.

But she was here to fix that. She would heal him, Lady willing. 

Humming softly, she circled around Mac in a three-foot radius, following the course the sun would take as she warded the area in which she would work. That done, she came to sit before Duncan in the damp grass. 

Closing her eyes, she put all thoughts of Death from her mind and focused on centering herself. She could feel the abbey’s energy pulsing through her now, could sense how spring was ready to burst forth at any moment…the way she wanted Duncan’s personality to burst forth, healed and well again. Plugging into those bright powers, she started to sing the ancient songs that had always called forth her protectors and then began her work in earnest.

“All right, Duncan,” she said softly, dreamily, feeling the sun on her skin and hair and the fertile earth below her, “let’s see where you are today – shall we?”

Taking his hands in hers, she reached out for him from the inside, the way she used to when the world was younger and the Mystery held sway, before Man’s machines had stolen the Earth’s heart away. Her Lady still held this ground as her own and her strength fed Cassandra’s, enhancing it, fine-tuning her will until…

Until a world ripe with summer flashed into being around her. The place was humming with power; although, it didn’t appear to be in use for any ceremonies at the moment.

Staring around her, Cassandra realized that this wasn’t like the experiences Methos had described where he became someone in the drama. She’d walked the past this way many times before. She was merely an observer to wherever Duncan had brought her, as unseen as the air around her. 

The scene was a familiar one. Bright tents and banners in an open area between old woods declared that there was some kind of faire in progress. Excited crowds of people in early medieval garb moved among the vendors, while horsemen in crude armor played in tourneys on a rough field at Cassandra’s end of the scene. 

Studying the armor, banners and setup, Cassandra thought she was somewhere in the Celtic Isles, not long after Rome’s fall. A shout from the field confirmed that fact. Welsh, a very ancient dialect, at that.

Cassandra searched the area, wondering which one of the people before her was Duncan. There were so many.

Turning to look behind her, she froze in place, stopped dead by an image that even she had believed nothing but legend. She was standing in front of a rocky outcrop at the edge of the forest. There, buried in a gray stone of about chest height was the hilt of a sword. It was glowing an eldritch silver in the afternoon sunlight. She couldn’t imagine what it would look like by moonlight.

As she watched, a golden haired, frantic-looking boy of about twelve came barreling up, ran almost right through her, and pulled the sword out of the rock, turning quickly to race with it back down the hill towards a young knight waiting on horseback, as though he’d done nothing remarkable. Within seconds, the whole world exploded around him.

The scene changed. That same lad, not so young now, deep in the forest in earnest conversation with the white haired Immortal whose image Cassandra had felt in Methos’ harp last night. 

Another turn of the wheel and that youth was stumbling his way to manhood with a dark-haired girl five or six years his senior, mounting her with a first-time intensity that was unmistakable. Cassandra felt the energy spark that heralded mortal conception as the pair groaned in sweaty release.

The scene shifted as the wheel of his life turned again. He was a man grown now, not an untried youth, a king among kings, a young Apollo on a gray stallion, garbed in golden armor, silver sword in hand, his band of followers stretching across the battle plain as far as the eye could see. And there at his side, that white haired, rugged Immortal, guiding his every move…an Immortal who carried no sword, only the ash staff of his calling.

Now it was that same golden armored warrior standing on one end of a bridge, his troubled blue eyes staring at his moaning men on either side of him as he approached the single man who’d taken out nine of his complement. Cassandra shivered as she studied his opponent’s tall, lean build. The dark hair, the way the helmed figure held his head…she knew that man. Sure enough, at the end of the desperate battle, the dented helm was lifted to unveil Death’s bloody face. The two opponents smiled and embraced, walking off the bridge arm in arm.

After that it was a fast changing montage of battles and celebrations. Always, it was Death at that bright king’s side, fighting his battles and cheering his spirits. It was a side of her ancient enemy that Cassandra had never seen. Always with Kronos, Death had been on guard, but with this king – he laughed…all the time. He played, he protected and he loved. It was there all over him, every time he looked at his bright lord.

A night sometime later. The king’s private chamber. That same blond man, dressed in king’s brocade, animatedly talking as he bent over a map unrolled on a table before the hearth, pointing something out to Death, who watched the king with a longing and intensity that only one as innocent as Duncan could fail to see. If Cassandra hadn’t hated him so, her heart would have ached for the man’s impossible situation.

Another night saw the pair sharing a laugh in a shadowed castle hall. As their gazes touched, the smiles died. The king reached out to touch his champion’s chest as he leaned in to claim those thin, berry-red lips. For a stolen moment, the sheerest of ecstasies showed on both their faces, then the champion stumbled back and whispered, “No, this will destroy you.”

The king’s plea of “I don’t care!” was rife with desperation.

But Death held firm, with a choked out, “I do. I will not be your downfall. Don’t put that on me.”

Need obviously overcoming sense, the king argued, “I could order it.”

Where there should have been outrage or even fear, the champion merely gave a sad smile and shook his head, the softness of the caress those long fingers couldn’t resist giving his king’s bearded face seeming to belie his rejection. “No, one such as you would never order that. And that is why my answer is and must always be no. Good night, my lord.” 

And the king was left standing at the top of the castle stairs with such an expression of suppressed longing on his wide, troubled face that a blind man could have read it as he let his champion walk away. Cassandra observed how the king watched his gray haired mentor and champion meet at the foot of the stairs in another of the mysterious exchanges that would never be explained, how the king saw, but didn’t hear, the harsh words that passed between his two closest friends. His champion shook his head in a clear no and stormed off, his mentor shaking his head afterwards in exacerbation that was just as obvious, then moving up to join him. 

Then the wheel turned again. Cassandra saw a parade of stunning women pass through that bright king’s bed, but ever his eyes were unsatisfied, empty until he saw his champion again. She looked to see how Death comported himself during that period, whose flesh her ancient enemy purged his unrequited love upon…and found the man walking the night like one of the undead, his bed empty, his mind absorbed with books or work.

Years seemed to pass that way. The king’s brightness dimmed as he entered what had to be his fourth decade. The question of an heir became a pressing issue to all but the king and his champion. Both seemed, if not content, then at least resigned to dwell in that half-life of unending longing. 

And it was then that the change occurred. A golden-curled girl, barely fifteen years of age, entered the picture. Cassandra saw how smitten the king was with her youthful innocence and shy intelligence as she sat at her father’s side at banquet, and she saw as well how flattered, but disinterested, the girl was in this suitor who was older than her father. But, as with all things in that age, the men made their arrangements, and her innocence was sold for a title and land ‘queath. The king would have his heir, the kingdom a queen, and all would be well with the world, save for the child that was asked to sell her happiness away. 

The date was set. Cassandra watched the young girl fret and cry until she was packed off to her fate…escorted there by her bridegroom’s champion. The spark that had been so horribly lacking from her meetings with her betrothed was there from the first as her gray eyes met Death’s hazel. Cassandra held her breath, waiting for the inevitable, but…Death did not disgrace the infatuated girl. Instead, he stopped her fretting and made her laugh with stories of her future husband, every word fanning that initial spark higher.

The wedding passed in a bright blur of joy and laughter, save for all but the king’s champion, who tried to smile, but who only managed to look lost. Time passed. The marriage bed was not happy, but tolerable, a fact to which the king seemed blind. And always, there was his champion there, making both king and young bride laugh where otherwise there would have been empty silence. That spark between gray eyes and hazel grew stronger, while that between blue and hazel began its inevitable dimming. Time and again after that on the wheel’s turning, Cassandra would see Death come to his lord and lady to beg his leave…and be ever refused. Titles and land were granted, where only honorable release was sought.

Why Death didn’t leave then, Cassandra couldn’t say. It was clear why his lord wanted him around. The king’s need for protection was real. His kingdom won, he now had the difficult task of maintaining it. Loyal followers such as his champion were few and far between. That Death would be that champion, she still couldn’t fathom, any more than she could comprehend why Death remained to torture himself, for Cassandra could see how impossible it was for Methos, torn between two loves, either of which would damn him.

As happened in all such cycles, bad went to worse. A spear thrust in battle ended all hopes for an heir. Cassandra watched wide-eyes as Death and the king’s Druid fought back the grim reaper, saving the man, but not his spirit. The castle was never the same after that. Laughter was almost anathema. And the king’s marriage bed…what had been tolerable to a frightened girl became impossible for the disenchanted woman she’d become. And still that spark was ever there between gray eyes and hazel, still the king refused his champion’s pleas for release…until the wheel spun again and the final ingredients for disaster were added to the mix.

The bastard heir, begotten off a union in a bed where neither king nor man had the right to be, arrived at court with his mother, the king’s sister. Cassandra watched the scandal rock the Court, wincing in sympathy as the young queen’s barrenness became the talk of the day. As the king warmed to his son, his heart grew cool to the bride who had failed to give him a rightful heir. His queen drifted further and further away in the coldness, until the day when the spark in those hazel eyes flashed to fire at her plight, and she finally found the warmth she had searched for all her lonely days as a trophy queen. 

Though she hated him, Cassandra winced when the wheel revealed the inevitable discovery on that stormy afternoon when the queen’s bedroom door flew open to reveal an even greater storm in her husband’s face. Just whom the king was jealous of at that point, Cassandra had trouble discerning, for he seemed as distressed over his champion’s infidelity as his wife’s.

Cassandra listened as the accusations flew, amazed to hear Death as the voice of reason through it all, but the world wanted naught of reason in those dark days. It was fully acceptable for a man to buy a woman from her father for a few leagues of land, but should that woman seek her happiness elsewhere, it was a sin punishable by death. And the king was betrayed enough to want that punishment. Stunned, Cassandra watched the man she thought of as rapist and murderer risk his life to free his lover from the castle dungeons, she stood by the broken king as he watched the pair flee into the night, the white-haired Druid at his side advising leniency.

The rest was almost too hard to watch. Villainy piled upon villainy, betrayal upon betrayal, until the bright boy she’d observed from childhood was fighting for his life against men who had once sworn fealty to him, against a son he would have given the world to, had the boy only waited. And there on that bleak battlefield, when all was lost, Fate turned her wheel again. A battalion of avenging angels fell upon the bastard’s host, driving them back. The fallen king looked up through blood drenched eyes at a vision of his champion, looking as young and as mighty as he’d been the day he’d sworn himself to the king’s service.

Cassandra watched Death fight with a berserker frenzy, driving the king’s attackers off, pounding them until all lay dead. Evil was defeated that day and the right restored, but at what cost, for the bright king who could never be replaced lay dead and all they’d built lay broken around them. 

It was almost with pity that Cassandra watched the weeping champion hold the dead king to his breast as he’d never been able to do in life.

Realizing that her vision should have broken off when Duncan’s perspective ended with the king’s death, Cassandra stared around the blood soaked field, wondering why she was still here.

A cold shiver passed through her as she saw the only other figure still standing on the misty battlefield, another specter from the future. Only, this visitor was as non-present in his actual reality as he was sightseeing in the past. Duncan MacLeod stood there in the distance, his plain white shirt, blue jeans and long black coat as out of place here as they would have been in the Scotland of his boyhood.

Turning her back on her grief-stricken enemy, she made her way through the corpses to where MacLeod stood. His gaze was fixed on Methos. She’d never seen such…despair in Duncan’s handsome face. It was gray with loss. He looked like he’d lost everything that mattered to him. There was nothing of that beautiful, idealistic child he’d been left...and Cassandra’s heart ached for that loss.

“Hello, Duncan,” she uncertainly greeted the fog-swept Highlander, not sure if he’d be any more aware of her than he was back in the abbey.

Mac surprised her. He glanced her way. Seeming neither startled nor curious about her presence, MacLeod responded, “Cassandra.” Not cold, not warm, simply an acknowledgement. 

“What are you doing here, Duncan?” she asked.

His gaze turned back to where Methos was still loudly weeping over his fallen comrade.

“Searching,” was all Duncan said, his eyes turning back to Death as though being pulled against their will. Cassandra wasn’t sure if it was just an effect of the mists twirling around him, but Mac seemed more insubstantial, almost as though he were fading with the mists.

“For?”

“We never get it right,” he answered in a voice so gruff that she could barely understand him. Through the swirling gray fog, she could see the tears standing clearly in his eyes and then….

And then the scene snapped around her and Cassandra found herself back in the abbey’s garden, kneeling in the wet, dead grass before Duncan’s still figure.

“Duncan? Duncan!” she’d had him, for a moment, conscious, if not corporeal.

Burdened by the sights she’d seen, Cassandra rose shakily to her feet. 

“Come, Duncan, let’s go inside and have some tea,” she said, falling into Methos’ practice of talking to MacLeod as though he were all right. Guiding him to his feet, she led him back to the cottage.

To her surprise, Death did not meet them at the door. So, Cassandra took MacLeod’s coat off him and put it on the rack. Before she could guide him any further into the house, Mac startled her by turning on his heel and leaving her. She followed bewilderedly behind, until the bathroom door closed in her face.

“He does that,” a somewhat ironical voice observed from the kitchen to her right. “It can be fairly disconcerting the first few times. Don’t worry, I’ll collect him in five or ten minutes.”

“He doesn’t come back?” Cassandra couldn’t help but question, looking over to where Death was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Not on his own. Tea?” Methos offered, lifting a brown betty her way.

Yesterday, pride would have had her denying the offer on general principle, but her spirit journey had left her a little too fugued to worry about formalities. Besides, she had some questions she needed answered. Though she was fairly certain that what she’d plugged into was a true memory and not a fantasy, Death was the most unlikely Lancelot candidate that she could have cast.

She saw his shock when she nodded her head in assent and moved to the furthest end of the table to sit down. 

He didn’t have just tea ready. There was a platter of sandwiches on the table that he wordlessly pushed her way. Famished as she always was after spirit work, Cassandra couldn’t resist digging into one. His silence while she grounded herself in the here and now seemed to confirm his claims of having apprenticed with an adept in the arts. The cheeses, meats, breads and fruit he’d laid out were exactly the type of food one craved after working with the Mystery.

While she ate, she kept her eyes on her food. Though, to give him credit, she couldn’t feel him staring at her. He seemed just as uncomfortable with being thrust together as she was.

When she’d eaten her fill, she took a sip of the tea before her and finally looked his way.

As though sensing her attention, his tired gaze moved to her, hesitantly, as though expecting an explosion.

After a moment’s uncomfortable silence, Methos courteously inquired, “How’d it go today?”

“It went,” Cassandra snapped. As his eyes shied away, she cursed herself. She needed his help now. She wasn’t going to get it by savaging the man. “Actually, there’s something I need to ask you.”

“Yes?” she could see how difficult it was for the exhausted man to force himself to meet her gaze again. He actually seemed to be more ill at ease and pained by her presence than she was to be here.

“Absurd as this may sound…is there any chance you were Lancelot?” she could barely voice the question with a straight face.

His reaction was extreme and unexpected. The events they were referring to had happened over sixteen-hundred years ago, yet every drop of color drained from his already pallid face as though she’d reopened a recent wound. 

She could see the defensive barriers snapping up around him as Methos quietly and blatantly evaded, “Sorry, that’s not a name I’ve ever used.”

Her own nerves pressed to the limit at attempting to hold rational discourse with this rapist, she countered, “Don’t argue semantics with me. It’s Duncan’s sanity you’re gambling with. Were you or were you not Arthur’s champion?”

Her accusation seemed to cut his already wobbly legs out from under him. And, seeing what she’d just seen in Duncan’s mind, she felt almost ashamed for forcing the issue as he answered in an almost broken voice, “His name was Artos. He was…the finest king who ever ruled and one of the greatest men I ever met.”

“He was Duncan MacLeod,” Cassandra softly informed.

His wide, red-ribboned gaze popped to her face, scouring for truth. “What?”

“I spent the afternoon watching a mental film of his life. Duncan had cast himself in the role of king. You were his champion and confidant. There was too much reality there for it to be fantasy.” Cassandra wasn’t sure what reaction she was expecting, but the pain her words sliced into those already over-burdened features made her regret ever bringing it up. While it was true that Death was the most hated enemy she would ever have; it was equally true that there were some things that she was simply not allowed to do as a healer. There were levels of cruelty that would forever expel her from her Lady’s favor, and she recognized that she was approaching those limits here, however unintentionally.

“That’s three times I’ve damned him then,” Methos said almost to himself.

“What?” Cassandra asked, liking neither the despondent tone nor Methos’ strained expression.

“He’s given me his heart in three realities, and in all three, I’ve led him to his destruction. Heal him, lady, if you can. Heal him and take my head.”

He was up and leaving the table before she’d unraveled his words. She’d thought he would storm to his room, but instead, he went into the bathroom. 

There was silence for a long time, and then she could hear him talking again, though she couldn’t distinguish the muffled words. They were soft, laden with that infinite patience he seemed to have for Duncan. The toilet flushed and the door reopened.

As he led MacLeod from the bathroom, she looked into the ragged face of this stranger she named Death.

He met her gaze with a vulnerability he seemed unable to mask, for all that she could see his pride was insisting that he remain outwardly unperturbed after his earlier outburst. She could almost see him waiting for her to tear into him, and yesterday she would have done it without pause or qualm, but she still had the image in her mind of this man holding a bloody corpse on a battlefield. It just wasn’t in her to torment someone who was obviously already in Hell. 

“Methos?”

She saw his Adam's apple bob as he gulped and straightened, visibly preparing for an attack he obviously hadn’t the strength to withstand. “Yes?”

“Why don’t you let me take Duncan down to the hot springs for his soak today while you get some rest?” Cassandra suggested as blasé as possible.

His gaze narrowed in an all too familiar suspicion. His exhausted features revealed how hard he was working to unravel the hidden purpose of her offer, for it was clear that it was beyond his ability to accept that she had his best interests at heart. Finally, he seemed to give up on the mental effort and offered a confused sounding, “Thanks, but I’ll manage.”

“You’ll be of no help to Duncan if you fall flat on your face,” she argued. “Go rest.”

“There isn’t any rest, Cassandra. There are only regrets,” Methos countered, but he gave her a small smile that, while shy, was genuine. Then he took Duncan’s arm and led the Highlander through the door that led down to the hot springs below.

Sighing, because she couldn’t understand why she should care if he were unwell, Cassandra finished her lunch and went off to her own room to reclaim her strength.

**********************

In the days that were to follow, she would learn the truth of Methos’ words. She didn’t know what he did at night when he retired with Duncan to their room, but it wasn’t resting. The man looked as though he never slept, but he made sure Duncan did; the same way he made certain that the Highlander ate while his own meals went mostly untouched. Cassandra came to realize that the only thing that was giving her former enemy the energy to remain conscious and on his feet was the power he exchanged with Duncan during their daily sharing of the Forging. Though Cassandra never eavesdropped, either physically or psychically, it was impossible for a healer of her sensitivity to miss that level of energy exchange when it was happening on the other side of the wall.

Her worries about Death molesting the oblivious Highlander vanished, because, as much as she wanted to think badly of Methos, nothing she saw in her daily exposure to him would allow her to believe he’d do anything to endanger Duncan. The man was just too…devoted. She’d never seen anybody with the patience and perseverance Methos exhibited when dealing with Mac. Also, the time MacLeod and Methos spent alone in their bedroom in the afternoons seemed to replenish Mac’s strength on a daily basis. So, she kept her council about what went on in the next room, and, although Methos watched her every day afterwards as though awaiting censure, Cassandra let it pass.

Truth be told, she didn’t have the energy to confront Methos. The work she did with Duncan was intense, of a type she hadn’t had opportunity to practice for centuries. Christianity had branded her a witch, deviate and Satan worshipper. It was the rare mortal who ventured to her cottage at all these days. And while she would never forget the arts she had spent millennia mastering, employing them so intensely after such a long hiatus drained her utterly. And…there was something inside her that would not allow her to taunt someone who saw to her creature comforts so discretely. 

This last bothered her as much as it would have angered her when she’d arrived two weeks ago. She’d told Methos repeatedly that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself, and, yet, every morning breakfast was there waiting for her. When she came in after her session with Duncan, a hearty lunch would be on the table, and the same with dinner. She was honestly too distracted to make an issue of it, so she’d taken to just eating whatever he put out for her. But….

It made the hating hard. She was a healer. It wasn’t her nature to kill, but she’d sworn upon her people’s bones and her ravaged virginity that she would avenge them. 

_Just as Longford had._

That thought echoed more and more through her thoughts these days when she saw the bleak misery the Macedonian’s revenge had wrought. Her beautiful Duncan was off languishing somewhere in the spirit world, searching for Lady knew what, while Methos….

Methos’ suffering shouldn’t matter, she told herself. Whatever he got, he deserved. That went without saying, and, yet….

Had she planned to hurt him in the worst way possible, she couldn’t have done so more effectively than what Longford had done. There was no hope left in her ancient enemy. Cassandra no longer feared that Methos would run out on their bargain once Mac was healed, for she could sense that the man was almost eager to see a surcease of his sorrow, accepting death as the only escape option left to him.

Cassandra vented a deep sigh and pushed the troubling thought from her mind and heart. She was supposed to be focusing herself for another journey into MacLeod’s time-traveling psyche. Every day, she had a different life play out before her. Most times the people were strangers, but always for a few seconds after the persona he’d played in that timeframe would die, she’d see Mac’s ghost standing there in the background watching. Sometimes she’d get a word or two from him, but most times he fled from her like a will-o-the-wisp.

This afternoon, Mac’s roving spirit had brought them back to another castle. At first she thought she was back at Camelard, but a glance out the window showed her quite a different landscape than the harsh Welsh coastline.

She looked around the chamber she found herself in with interest, smiling at the young boy asleep in his canopied bed, glowing golden in the light from the lit candelabra on his night table. At perhaps six or eight years of age, he was an angel. Touseled blond curls, perfect peaches and cream skin, an innocence so pronounced it was almost palpable…no one could look at the sleeping child without responding to it.

Cassandra noted the empty pallet beside his bed, where normally his nurse would have slept. Concern crept through her, for the wind was high. The open casement on the other side of the bed was making the drapes at the top of the child’s canopied bed billow out, dangerously close to the lit candles.

Were this her own age, Cassandra would have offered up a song to calm the wind or douse the candles, but as a spectator to the ancient past, she was powerless to help in any way. As she’d feared, the drapes ignited. The golden flames snaked up the bed’s curtains almost too fast to be seen. The wood on the top of four-poster bed caught with a rush of sound, and still the child slept on. 

It was only as the wood began to groan around him as it burned that the noise or smoke finally woke the boy. Coughing, he rose with a scream, lifting his left hand to protect his face as his bed came crashing down around him.

The wheel turned again and Cassandra saw that same boy older, horribly disfigured. Her heart bled for him as she watched him bravely try to interact with those around him, people who could hardly gaze on his face without shuddering. As the wheel continued to turn, she recognized Mac’s courage and fortitude in the lonely youngster. Virtually friendless, the boy spent his days haunting the keep. Finally out of pity, the priest taught the young lord to read the Bible, the only book in the castle.

The years crawled by with painful slowness for the youth, and then everything changed all at once, as so often happened.

Cassandra sighed as the wheel showed her the tall, dark haired stranger who entered the lord’s service to keep his accounts straight. This Methos had little in common with Artos’ handsome champion. He was quiet and reserved, completely unassuming. Looking at him, there was almost a wounded air about him, Cassandra thought.

The trunk of books he brought with him attracted the disfigured youth like honey would flies. 

Cassandra had been prepared to see Methos either indulge the young man with the pandering civility most of the lord’s retainers accorded the scarred heir or dismiss him completely as Death would have done. The boy’s father was barely better than any of the others when it came to handling the disfigurement, so there wouldn’t have been any grave repercussions should Methos have shrugged the young man off. 

To her surprise, Methos did neither. Almost ashamed by the assumption she’d made, Cassandra watched the gentleness with which Methos treated the boy. As the wheel of the stars turned, she saw the young man’s gratitude grow into friendship and his lips turn upwards in laughter. When he smiled at Methos, his whole being lit up, the web work of livid red scars that made up the entire left side of his face seeming less noticeable. 

She saw how at Methos’ urging, the young man began to join in more of the keep’s social functions. Michel, for so the young lord was named, no longer left the feasts as soon as he finished eating or hid in corners to remain unnoticed. He stayed at his father’s table, chatted with his peers, while doing his best to ignore the fact that no one else seemed able to forget his scars…except Methos, who hardly seemed aware of them. But the others…they made Michel’s life as difficult as possible.

Cassandra observed one such heart-breaking incident at a time when Methos had been at the keep for perhaps five years. Michel had grown from a gawky teenager to a quiet young man during that time. This particular day, a group of Michel’s kinsmen were planning a hunt. Cassandra’s heart grew sad to see how the other youths all found reasons to cancel their plans when Michel made to join them. Methos’ young friend took it well, until he saw the group ride out the postern gate with their hunting hounds later that day. He was still standing there staring as the last of them made their way out when Methos approached behind him. 

The compassion and understanding that softened that hated face no longer stunned Cassandra, who was beginning to see a different Methos than the one memory painted. Her ancient enemy led the scarred youth away from the keep, into the out-lying woods that fringed the castle.

Michel said nothing as they walked under the autumn canopies for a long time with dry leaves crunching loud underfoot. Finally, he sighed and joked, “I like it out here. Perhaps I should bide here with the other beasts.”

It was Methos’ voice that was bitter as he replied, “You’re not a beast, my young lord. Their cruelty paints them as such.”

“How many times need I ask you to call me Michel?” the young man protested, before continuing with, “It isn’t their fault my face is too horrible for men to gaze upon.”

“Your face is a face, Michel, no more horrible than any man’s,” Methos countered in the gentle tone Cassandra had grown used to hearing him employ with Duncan.

“How can you say that? I know what I look like…”

“So do I, my lord. This keep is a tiny corner of the world-” 

“Are you telling me there’s someplace this wouldn’t matter? Tell me, Adam, in all your travels, have you found a land of blind men, for it is only in such a place that I will find welcome,” Michel declared.

“I am living in a land of the blind,” Methos answered. “A man is not measured by his comeliness-”

“In God’s eyes, perhaps, but what creature of flesh and blood would want to gaze upon this for eternity?” Michel’s scarred hand gestured towards his even more damaged face. “Would you?”

The young lord hung his head when he received no immediate reply, but Cassandra saw what the mortal missed, the shocked epiphany that Methos was experiencing.

“See, your honesty will not allow you to lie,” Michel noted in a voice that held no accusation, only resignation.

“Michel,” Methos seemed to weigh each word before voicing it, “in another time, I would show you your worth. There is a great deal of ignorance in this world. Those same men who scorn you would pass by a diamond or ruby in its natural state, because it didn’t glitter straight off to their liking. But there will always be those who know a diamond when they see it.”

“You…you liken me to a jewel?” Michel asked hesitantly, something in his attitude suggesting that he feared he was being mocked.

This ancient Immortal, who’d had a glib tongue before the language he was currently speaking had even been born, appeared speechless. Methos’ gaze dropped almost guiltily from the young mortal. Still, he gave a sharp nod of assent.

Michel’s confusion was obvious to Cassandra. The youth hadn’t the experience to recognize the heavy sexual undercurrents that were making the air around them tingle like it would before a summer storm, but he was apparently sensitive enough to know that something wasn’t right between them.

They walked on through the trees…and the wheel turned.

She next saw them on a humid summer evening when the keep was sweltering like a sauna. Cassandra recognized the well-appointed room as the one in which Michel’s bed had burned. Methos and his lord’s son sat across from each other at a small table, a chessboard between them. Both men were stripped down to the least amount of clothing possible, wearing only their hose and loose white linen shirts. Michel’s hair was its usual tumble of wild blond curls. Methos’ longer length was held back by a leather strip, save where the intense humidity made it stand straight up in places on the top.

“Louisa wanted you to accompany her to her room tonight,” Michel remarked, staring at the chest bared by the older man’s open shirt with innocent hunger. Seeing the intensity of that want, Cassandra didn’t know how Methos bore it. It was clear the youth was oblivious to his true desires. “What are you doing here with me?”

“We had plans,” Methos reminded, as though it were perfectly normal for a man to forego the pleasures of a woman’s boudoir for the chance to sweat away a hot night over a chessboard. “You wouldn’t have been so rude as to ignore a prior commitment – would you, Michel?”

“I wouldn’t have that problem. Louisa wouldn’t want me to accompany her to her room,” Michel dismissed the thought with a smile as though it were unthinkable.

“And if she had?” Methos asked with a strange intensity that made Cassandra shiver to watch it. She couldn’t imagine what it felt like to have it focused upon her. Stunned, she realized that he was flirting with the youth, not in any overt manner that would frighten the Christian lad, but with a subtle, sensual flair that would get the younger man’s heart pounding all the same.

Surprised, she saw Michel hold that deep gaze. “I would still bide here.”

It was Methos who gulped and took another sip of wine from his silver goblet. He held the cool, condensation-beaded metal flagon to his forehead as if to cool himself down.

Cassandra studied him, surprised by how affected he was by this unfortunate youth. She could understand his kindness to the young lord, for hurting Michel would have been equitable to kicking a puppy, but Methos’ obvious desire for the disfigured man was puzzling. Death had always had the most beautiful women and young men in his tent. Someone like Michel would have been put to the blade back then. But here Methos was, aching to be intimate with the youth. It made no sense.

“Do you remember that day of the hunt when Albert and Claude left me behind last fall?” Michel said after a long silence. The sweat dotting his brow no doubt caused by more than the heat right now.

Methos nodded, the gaze he turned on Michel almost wary.

“What did you mean when you said that _if this were another time you’d show me my worth_?” the mortal asked.

Michel was perhaps not so oblivious, after all, Cassandra decided. She waited for the lie that must come from Methos now to avert catastrophe. This was not an age when men admitted to such tendencies, even with the closest of friends - perhaps especially not with the closest of friends. 

But Methos didn’t dissemble. How great his loneliness must have been, she thought, as she saw him hold his companion’s gaze and softly declare, “You are not a child anymore, Michel. You know what I meant.”

Methos looked down at the game board between them and moved his knight. He seemed content to allow the topic to drop once again, as she sensed he had on many a night in the past. Even so, she could see the tension in his too-still form. He was coiled over that chess set like he was prepared to flee at a moment’s notice, and well he should be, for if the conversation went awry, the accusation that would be leveled against him would be enough to get him burned alive.

Once again, he’d surprised her. When she’d first seen this scenario developing, Cassandra had suspected how it would play out. The boy scarred and vulnerable, Methos, a skilled manipulator…she would have wagered anything that her ancient enemy would have taken advantage of a comfort situation and plunged this isolated youth into a state of sexual excitement in which there would be no choice, only surrender. But that wasn’t what Methos was doing at all. For whatever reason, he was holding back, allowing the youth to pursue him in this torturously slow, incredibly bumbling manner.

The silence felt like it would stretch into eternity. 

At last Michel asked, “Do you believe in Hell, Adam?”

“Man makes his Hells with his cruelties, for himself and others,” this man who had created more horrors than could possibly be remembered replied.

Michel’s gaze swept down to the chessboard before rising again to Methos’ face. “Why should you want to…waste your time with me? To turn down a woman as charming as Louisa…and she’s not the first. I’ve seen you refuse other beautiful women….”

“Perhaps I don’t find them all that charming or beautiful,” Methos replied, and then warned, “And if you lower that chess piece, you will be placing yourself in check.”

Michel hastily pulled back his bishop. His mind was obviously anywhere but on their game, his gaze, like Cassandra’s, was fixed on the huge droplet of perspiration that was slipping slowly down Methos’ elegant neck into the light dusting of chest hair just visible through his open shirt. Ripping his eyes away, the young man continued, “Louisa is the loveliest woman in this keep. What could you possibly find displeasing about her?”

Methos was quiet a moment before answering, “I no longer find cruelty an appealing trait in bedmates.”

The youth blinked at that, obviously perceptive enough to understand what Methos was saying about his past as well as his present. “What cruelties do you speak of? I have never seen any of the ladies you’ve…ignored offer you so much as a single unkind word.”

“And I have never heard one of them offer you a kind one,” Methos replied.

Michel dropped his chess piece on the board, his shock obvious. “You scorn them on my account?”

“No man is immune to misfortune, Michel. If they can treat the bravest, fairest man in this keep so cruelly because of a twist of fate, why should I expect them to be any kinder to me should disaster befall me?” Methos challenged.

It was clear that the young man wasn’t used to compliments. Methos’ words hit him hard. Michel swallowed loudly and then asked in a choked off voice, “You think me…brave? Why?”

Even Cassandra found her throat tightening with emotion. She could see Methos undergoing a similar problem.

Finally, Methos replied, “Because I know your goodness and character. You treat all you meet with courtesy, both noble and lowborn. And…I saw how you intervened last year when Albert was beating that servant.”

Michel’s uninjured cheek turned nearly as red as his scarred one as he tried to shrug the incident off with, “It wasn’t the poor lad’s fault Albert spilt the wine on his new doublet.”

“True, but there were fifteen other men present, and not a one of them saw fit to speak up for the boy. You stood one against five that day,” Methos said.

“Two against five,” Michel reminded. “You joined me and stood fast at my side.”

“You could have handled it fine on your own. You didn’t need me there,” Methos demurred, swapping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. The room was as steamy as the emotions between them. 

An uncomfortable pause followed. Michel broke it with a barely audible, “I have always needed you by my side. I…always will.”

“I will be there, my lord,” Methos softly affirmed, his sweat-beaded face a strange mix of resolution and yearning.

“No _my lords_ , not tonight,” Michel said. 

The boy was very much like a young Duncan MacLeod, she realized, watching as he steeled his nerves to bring a topic out into the open that he’d been warned all his life would bring him nothing but a grisly death and damnation.

“Adam?”

“Yes?” Methos answered, his eyes glittering like emeralds in the flickering candlelight.

Michel opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. The direct approach obviously too much for him, he swallowed and hesitantly said, “If you are warm, it would not offend me if you were to remove your shirt.”

“I am very warm,” Methos responded. Standing up, he shouldered out of his loose shirt. His mostly hairless, well-formed chest glowed in the candlelight with a sheen of sweat.

Methos just stood there, allowing the younger man to look his full. 

Cassandra heard the swallow Michel gave from her vantage point across the room as Methos’ genitals swelled in size under the intense observation. 

“Would-would you be cooler with your hair unbound?” Michel questioned.

Without a word, Methos lifted his hands to the back of his head and undid the leather strip there. The long length came tumbling over his pale shoulders in a silent cascade.

And still the young man made no move to touch.

Finally, Methos cleared his throat and softly said, “I am not made of stone, Michel. If this is but a game to you….”

“No…no game. I…. Would it…offend you if I…touched you?”

Methos gulped and gave a slow shake of his head. He stood totally still while the younger man approached him.

Michel reached a tentative hand out to stroke the soft dusting of dark hair between Methos’ breasts. The older man gasped in a breath at that first touch.

“This pleases you?” Michel asked with heart-rending concern as he fingered the growing bud of a nipple.

“ _You_ please me,” Methos corrected. 

“May I…?” Michel’s nerve apparently failed him.

Drawing a deep breath that expanded his bare chest to impressive proportions, Methos softly informed, “You may do as you please with me…anything you want.”

“Anything?” Michel gruffly echoed, running a flat palm down Methos’ rack of abdominal muscles.

Methos gave a slow, sexy nod of agreement. 

The novice’s hand slipped lower, skimming down Methos’ concave belly, over his waistband, moving till he cupped Methos’ hose-covered crotch. The groan Methos gave was deep and low, so familiar it made Cassandra shudder. How often had she serviced him and heard exactly that sound?

The youth’s trembling hands bared Methos’ steamy erection to the humid night air, peeling his hose down to his knees. Cassandra saw how Michel eagerly stroked the back of Methos’ thighs on the way back up, as though he were incapable of resisting touching any part of the other man. Taking that huge cock in his fist, Michel pumped it with growing confidence. Both men stared down at what Michel was working on between them, Methos’ breathing becoming harsher and more erratic. As the pleasure mounted, Methos’ face contorted, his hands jumping to Michel’s shoulders to help hold him up.

And then it was over in a pulsing gush that splattered Michel’s hands and Methos’ stomach.

They stood there frozen together for the longest time, as though neither wanted to be the first to move.

Finally, Michel asked in the most uncertain tone Cassandra could ever recall hearing, “Was that…all right?”

“Oh, Michel,” Methos sighed, “that was far more than all right.” 

Methos’ right hand reached up to card his fingers through his companion’s curls. When the younger man made no further moves, Methos softly asked, “But what of you?”

“What?” When he blinked and opened his eyes wide like that, Michel looked all of twelve. His expression made it clear that he’d thought the night over.

“What can I do to please you, my friend?” 

Cassandra was beginning to see that this gentleness was far more a prevalent character trait of Methos’ than any of Death’s habits.

“You…you don’t have to do anything. Before, that was enough. I – I know how hard it is for people to even look upon me up close, let alone…touch,” Michel whispered, his gaze locked on the stone floor at their feet.

Methos ran his index finger slowly down the left side of Michel’s face, across the worst of the scars. The younger man gasped, his eyes squeezing tightly shut as the finger trailed down the side of his neck. 

“While I love the sound of your voice and could listen to it for hours, I’d prefer not to hear you mouth such foolishness. Gazing upon you is one of my heart’s delights. As for touching you…who could resist this softness, this strength? Have I your permission to touch freely, fair Michel?” Methos asked with only the slightest catch in his voice.

Cassandra could see from where she stood how violently the scarred youth was shaking as he gave a tight, affirmative nod of his head.

Methos leaned in closer, rubbed his cheek against Michel’s damaged one, and whispered into his curl-obscured ear, “Thank you, _mon coeur_. Fear not. I’ll bring you no harm.” 

Then he took the younger man’s mouth for the very first time and the pair melted together.

And the wheel turned. Cassandra could barely credit that this tender lover who coaxed his self-conscious companion into the joyous celebration of his manhood was the same plunderer who’d destroyed her entire world. She watched their love grow into the kind of union everyone longed for, but so few rarely attained. Methos had spoken true: he knew a diamond when he saw it; he was fully capable of cherishing it and polishing it till it shone. And shine Michel did. 

She couldn’t help but like Methos for the changes he made in that sad and lonely young man’s view of himself and the world.

When the end came with a crash of the door while the pair lay in love one night and the beautiful child she’d watched grow to maturity ended up skewered on the end of a pike, she almost pulled back into her own time at the horror of it. What was done to Methos afterwards hurt nearly as much. She’d never thought she could feel pity for the devil, but…the tears she shed at that ghastly castration were as much for her ancient enemy as for the love he’d lost.

Methos’ agonized shriek as he was mutilated was still ringing through the chamber when Cassandra caught sight of Duncan MacLeod’s ghostly figure lingering within the door. Turning her back on the brutal drama still being enacted behind her, she crossed to where Mac stood, placing herself between the Highlander and the view of Methos, who had passed out on the stone floor now and was lying there in a pool of blood beside his dead lover and cooling testicles.

“We were happiest here,” Mac said to her. “We almost got it right that time. I…keep coming back here again and again, but no matter how hard I try, it always ends the same way.”

“And so it must, Duncan,” she said gently. “The past is beyond our ability to change.”

“What are you doing here, Cassandra?” MacLeod softly asked, tears standing out bright in his eyes as he watched the cruelties her slender form wasn’t completely able to conceal. 

“Looking for you. You’ve been lost a long time.”

“I’m not lost,” he insisted.

“No?” Cassandra quizzed, not taking issue with him, but allowing her skepticism to show.

“I’m…”

“Searching, I know,” Cassandra finished. “Do you even know for what?”

“Not what,” Mac answered. “Who. I’ve found him twice. Each time…”

“Methos?” she gasped. “You’re searching for Methos?”

“I know you hate him, but…” MacLeod sighed. “There’s no point arguing this with you.”

“No, Duncan, please! Don’t go!” she begged, quickly adding, “I need your help.”

That stopped him from fleeing, as she’d known it would.

“My help?” he cautiously questioned, it clear that he believed he wasn’t even able to help himself. But he didn’t leave her. For all that they hadn’t parted on good terms, Duncan MacLeod would never be able to turn his back on a friend in need.

“The people who care about you back home are so worried. When you leave me here, I barely find my way back some days. If you were to accompany me--”

“I can’t,” he said, paling.

“Why not?” Cassandra asked, trying to maintain her calm. 

“I really am lost back there…trapped. There is only the pain and the dying. I know if I keep searching here, I’ll find a place where we can be together…without death or pain…”

“There is no living in the past, Duncan,” Cassandra gently insisted, recognizing that she’d been guilty of that crime herself for the last three millennia. Seeing that she had his attention, she continued, “And you’re not trapped anymore. Methos found you.”

“Found me? He…couldn’t. No one knows where I am. I’ve been tied up for so long…” MacLeod’s handsome face tensed with anxiety at the suffering that had prompted this spirit walk. She could see him getting ready to bolt again.

“Duncan, I have never lied to you. I swear that you are strong and healed back home. You can’t stay here. There is no happiness for you here, only the memory of lives played out.” She stepped to the side, and pointed to where Methos was lying there sobbing on the cold, gory flagstones behind her as he awoke to the agony of his amputated flesh. “Look at him. This is how it will end every time. If you return to Camelard, it will be the same loss for him all over again, only without the joy of this dance. He is hurting like this at home now, because of you. The only place you have a chance to be happy with him is in your own present. Please, come back with me. If not for yourself, then do it for Methos.”

“Now I know you’re not real,” MacLeod said with a sad, forced smile.

“What? How am I not real?” Cassandra demanded before he could go, knowing this had to be real simply from the degree of exasperation this impossible man was raising in her. 

“You want him dead. You’d take Methos’ head with your bare hands, if given the chance. You would never argue for his sake,” Duncan said with perfect logic.

“It’s true. I hated him…possibly stronger than I ever loved,” Cassandra admitted, seeing for the first time how that hatred had held her back in her spirit work. How could she represent the forces of eternal love and nurturing while harboring such a destructive dream? But, this wasn’t about her right now; it was about Duncan. She had to help him back, whatever it took. For, when all was said and done, she recognized that she was as responsible for putting her former lover here as Longford was. She was lucky Methos hadn’t wanted _her_ head when she showed up. He’d have had reason, she realized. But while she had festered in her fantasies of revenge and blood for blood, Methos had changed, for the better, far more than she had. And, she was ashamed, for one of the Lady’s chosen should have behaved better. However, nothing was ever set in stone. Each day was a new beginning, and she had the perfect chance to start anew by setting this wrong she’d done right. So, rallying her spirit, Cassandra swore, “But…I have made my peace with Methos. I don’t want to see him suffer anymore. I swear. All I want is for you to come home to him. It’s been so long. He misses you so. Please, Duncan? You trusted me once when you had no reason when you were but a lad. Trust me again. I promise, I mean neither you nor your love harm.” 

Uncertainty shadowed his strong face. For a moment, she was sure she’d lost him, that he’d turn and flee again and she’d be forced to live out another of these tragic histories he was trying to bend to his will again tomorrow. But then, she saw the courage that had been his shining trait take hold…and the trust.

Still visibly hesitant, Duncan gulped and checked, “You swear to me that you are not taking me back to that car trunk? For I swear, I’d rather you take my head, Cassandra.”

“No, Duncan. That’s over. I promise. Methos has brought you home. Please, come see for yourself,” too tired to hope, she held out her hand.

And that amazing spirit of his carried him through. She saw him take a deep breath, then take hold of her.

As soon as he touched her, she closed her fist around his. Holding tight to his spirit, she found the thread that would lead them back and followed it down into herself, dragging him along.

She felt his panic at the moment of parting. Pulling him close on that psychic plain, she kissed him deeply before withdrawing, “You’re safe. Methos waits for you. I promise.”

“Cassandra!” he called as she made to tumble him back into his physical shell.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Smiling, because he would ever be the most perfect of heroes, she kissed his brow and eased him backwards…until he fell into himself and she was standing alone in the tunnel between the world of flesh and spirit. Then, taking a deep breath, she plunged home again, too.

The first thing she heard was a robin singing. She could feel the energies of Beltaine thrumming through the ley lines below her as clearly as she could feel the cold bite of the wind on her face. She opened her eyes to the gray, cloudy day she’d left behind what felt like years ago now.

The only things warm on her were her hands, which were still clasping Duncan’s. Almost afraid, she turned her eyes to the Highlander…and found him gazing in open confusion at the vine covered abbey ruins behind their bench.

“C-Cassandra…?” his voice was thick and harsh with disuse, “…what…how did you…where am I? I was…trapped…”

He was staring wildly about him, on the verge of panic at his abrupt change of state. It was clear Duncan had no memory of what had just passed between them…or what he’d been doing on the spirit plain for the past year or so. His last clear memory was obviously that of his torturous captivity.

It wasn’t an uncommon reaction. Those plains weren’t meant to be walked by the uninitiated. Half of an adept’s training involved learning how to retain the knowledge one learned on other plains of existence. 

And, in some ways, that forgetfulness was a blessing. The losses Duncan had lived through belonged where they were – in the distant past. It was bad enough Methos bore those tragic memories, without Duncan suffering them as well.

“You’re safe on holy ground,” she quickly assured him. “Methos is inside waiting for you.” 

She gestured towards the white cottage. 

“How did I get here…and where are we?” Duncan asked in that same painfully thick voice.

“We’re in an abandoned abbey about twenty miles outside of Clomboux. Methos rescued you from that car trunk over six months ago. You healed physically quite quickly, but…you’ve been suffering a form of mental shock since then,” Cassandra explained, trying not to alarm him too much.

His courage was truly astounding. Though it was clear he was unnerved by everything he was hearing, he kept his head. 

“You…healed me?” Mac asked.

“I helped a little,” she demurred. “Methos did the bulk of the work.”

“Methos…” seeming to remember what she’d said about his lover waiting inside the cottage, Duncan’s gaze jumped to the tiny white house. If she’d had any doubts about his feelings for her ancient enemy, they would have been dispelled by the expression on his face at that moment. He’d never looked like that over her…or anyone else he’d been involved with, she’d wager. It was as though the remembered pain of all the unrequited love and longing of those tragic lives he’d lived and lost with Methos was still there in his heart, even if the corporeal reality had purged the memory from his mind. Reminded of his lover, Cassandra could almost feel how he ached to be reunited with Methos again.

Her heart ridiculously gleeful, even though she felt she might drop flat on her face from exhaustion at any moment, Cassandra smiled at Duncan, “Why don’t you go in and see Methos? I know he’d like that.”

Tilting his head to the side, he peered at her out of narrowed eyes for a moment, as though thrown by how calmly she was discussing the man whose very name had sent her into a murderous fury when he’d last seen her. But the call to be with Methos was obviously stronger than his curiosity.

With a slow nod, Mac got to his feet. He stumbled at first, but quickly regained his balance. Moving as though he’d been thrust into someone else’s body, MacLeod walked to the cottage door.

Tears of joy and more moving through her, Cassandra watched him go…and then wept in earnest, in sorrow for the sad lives she’d viewed today, in gratitude for Duncan’s healing…and in thanks for the healing that she could feel moving in her spirit even now. She felt lighter…and freer than she could ever remember. Finally letting go of all that had held her back, she raised a joyful prayer of thanks.

***********************

The earth was moist under his feet as Duncan headed for the cottage, the air cold on his face and scented with sweet mud. He stared at the breathtaking vista of the snow-covered mountains in the distance and looked at the ruins beside him, overwhelmed by the wonder of it all.

It really was like magic. The last thing he remembered when he’d closed his eyes was that stinking trunk and more pain than he’d ever thought possible to experience. His twisted back, the hip he’d been resting on, the wrists bound so tight behind him…they’d all taught him new levels of agony.

But here he stood now, hale and supple. It was a miracle. There was no way around it.

Feeling like he’d had a body transplant, MacLeod looked down at himself. The black coat he was wearing was his own, but it felt terribly loose. And it was frighteningly light. There was no katana in its hidden sheath. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d ventured out in public without it. His sword….

He froze, memory flashing through him. A foggy night. He was on the dock outside his barge, bullets blasting into him, his katana skittering away in the fog, and Ritchie…

_Ritchie…_

Mac pulled in a ragged breath as he remembered the rest: Ritchie rushing to his rescue and dying for his trouble, the Quickening coming to him when that mortal bastard took Ryan’s head…

The world might be bright around him again, but Ritchie would never see it. Ritchie was dead, and he’d profited from the kid’s death. 

And now Duncan remembered those endless months of waking only to die of thirst again, how the memory of Ritchie’s death had been there all that time, as harsh a torment as his physical ordeal. 

That kid had been like a son to him. What kind of creature fed off its young like that, Duncan pondered, hating himself and his freakish nature as he had at no other time in his life. Ritchie’s entire life had been ahead of him and now…now he was just so much psychic baggage in his teacher’s mind. The unfairness of it all tore into him, as those handcuffs had ripped his flesh. 

The worst part was that he still didn’t know what it was all about – why Ritchie had been killed, why he’d been kidnapped, and, most importantly, who had done it.

MacLeod stood there brooding, staring off at the mountains for nearly a half hour. More than anything, he wished for an end to it, an end to the hurting. Would that he could have just died in that trunk, but his nature wouldn’t allow that, either.

He took a deep breath and tried to think, but all there was was sorrow. He could feel Cassandra in the garden behind him and an older, deeper presence waiting in the cottage.

Methos.

The last Duncan remembered, it had been Valentine’s Day and he was going to surprise his friend with that sculpture. Now…the melted snow on the peaks to the west and early wildflowers, whose shoots he could just see coming up beside the garden wall, all declared it to be late April or early May, which meant…

He’d been in that damn trunk for at least two and half months. Somehow, it had seemed longer than that. But he’d hardly been rational for most of that time. The pain alone had been transformative. With the grief added to it…it only stood to reason that his captivity would have felt far longer than it had actually been.

And yet, he’d lost so much weight. The jeans and salmon colored shirt that he could see he had on beneath his baggy coat had been at least two sizes too small for him in February. Now, they hung loose.

It was an unnerving feeling to wake up like this, fully dressed in clothes he had no memory of donning, in a place he had never seen…his first sight that of a person whom he hadn’t been sure wasn’t his enemy.

Cassandra…that she of all people would be here in this holy place with Methos when he awoke was incomprehensible. As he thought of Cassandra, he abruptly remembered what she’d told him when he’d opened his eyes – that Methos had rescued him from his car trunk prison… _six months ago_!

But…that made even less sense. Everything he knew about nature was telling him it was April or May here in the mountains. Six months ago…that would have made it December or January when he’d been rescued, but…he hadn’t been kidnapped until February…which meant that he’d been incapacitated in that trunk for a hell of a lot longer than two months…. 

Almost afraid to learn the truth, Duncan moved towards the door. Methos would know what happened. Methos….

His heart quickened at the thought of finally seeing his lover again. How often had he screamed that name in his confinement, hoping against hope that Methos would find him and put an end to his misery? And, now, untold months later, he would at last get to see him again.

He recalled how upset Methos had been in February – was it even just last February, he fretted - after Longford’s challenge. They hadn’t made love for weeks before his abduction. It felt like just yesterday to Duncan on some levels, and, yet, it felt centuries away, like the love they’d found together was as gone as Ritchie Ryan and Tessa, just another of those ephemeral moments of joy that passed before he could hold onto it. There had been so much pain in his life lately that those happy memories of them laughing and loving hardly seemed real anymore. He hardly knew what he’d even say to Methos, but…

The door opened quietly when he turned the knob. Duncan stared at the unfamiliar living room, taking in its cozy furnishings, simple, but very nice. Everything was new to him, and yet, Mac was sure that he’d sat on that velvet couch before. In fact, the furnishings and décor all gave him an uneasy sense of déjà vu. 

He closed his eyes, searching. The Immortal signature was coming from ahead of him, to the right, behind that wall. 

MacLeod followed the invisible thread through a doorway into a small kitchen and froze, gaping at the man in black jeans and gray Henley who sat there staring listlessly down into a teacup. If he himself were thin, Methos was emaciated. He’d often wondered what his lover would look like with longer hair, but the tight ponytail Methos was sporting only accentuated how terribly bony his face had become.

As if sensing of his presence, Methos started and looked up.

His eyes…Mac dragged in a shocked breath. The bags around those bloodshot eyes were so thick it looked like someone had socked Methos. His features were etched with exhaustion. The man was worn so thin that he looked like he didn’t have any reserves left at all. Mac had never seen anyone look so drained. He’d been concerned about Methos’ emotional state before he’d been kidnapped, but now that worry morphed into true fear. What the hell had happened to Methos?

Just as fast as the question flashed through his mind, its answer followed on its heels. _He_ was what had happened to Methos – his abduction and whatever had been involved in his recovery. 

As he watched, Methos forced a smile and greeted him in a tone MacLeod had only heard used in their bed, and then only rarely, when some of the more adventurous acts of their loving pushed him to his limit and Methos thought he needed comforting, “Hello, there. Need the bog – do we?”

“Methos?” he questioned, the strange tone and extreme physical changes in his friend really making him feel as though he’d tumbled down the rabbit hole. 

The tea mug dropped unnoticed from Methos’ hand to shatter on the table and spill its contents all over a pile of sandwiches there. 

“Mac?” Methos looked like he’d seen a ghost. “My God… _MAC_!”

And then Methos was on his feet and moving towards him and he was being held tight, so tight he could barely breathe, but when he did…the air had that gloriously familiar, warm scent that was Methos’ alone. It was so good to see him again, to hold him like this, but still, MacLeod felt like there was an invisible wall separating them – and it was inside of him. He felt strangely stiff and closed off, like he was still more dead than alive.

But Methos wasn’t cut off from his emotions. He was alive and sobbing, shaking all over from the shock of him walking in like this without warning, no doubt. MacLeod closed his arms around his friend, and was appalled by the changes. So thin…there was so little of him left.

His hand stroked that long back as he buried his nose in the shaggy ponytail at Methos’ neck and just breathed the man into himself, as Methos clung to him, soaking his neck with hot tears. 

A century or two later, Methos drew back far enough to see his face, his long fingers remaining locked in the material on the shoulders of MacLeod’s coat. 

“You’re really back – aren’t you? This isn’t a dream?” Methos checked.

Even if it had been, MacLeod wouldn’t have had the heart to tell him so. He knew that Methos was completely unconscious of the tears streaming down his cheeks, but every one of them pierced MacLeod like a dagger as he appreciated what the other man must have been through.

“I’m back,” he affirmed, for it seemed to be what Methos needed to hear most at that moment. He brushed his fingers across a once-regal cheekbone that now stood out like a bruise on Methos’ haggard features. “What have you been doing to yourself? You look awful.”

His purple-bagged eyes still brimming, Methos shook his head and chuckled, sobering as he seemed to become aware of MacLeod still stroking his cheek. His laughter died entirely as their gazes locked.

Mac heard the loud gulp Methos gave, felt the shudder that passed through that too-thin form. The need in those bloodshot eyes was unmistakable. Mac looked for a matching feeling inside himself, but there was only that god-awful pain. Still, knowing he’d hurt Methos if he didn’t respond made him feel worse, so Mac leaned in and kissed those pale lips.

The taste was as he remembered – warm, loving…flavored with milky tea this afternoon. Mac searched for the passion he knew that taste normally inspired…but found only a gaping absence. 

Methos’ hands came around him again, digging deep into his hair to hold him tight in place as the older Immortal fused their mouths together. The desperation and hunger penetrated even the rock MacLeod felt himself to be. Methos sagged against him as his legs seemed to go out from under him, and Mac accepted the weight. But still, there was nothing inside him where passion should have been. It was all just too much for him.

But he kissed and held and stroked, because Mac wanted more than anything to be close to this man again.

They both froze as a powerful Immortal signature buzzed around them.

Methos broke free of his mouth with a sigh. “That will be Cassandra.”

Sure enough, she entered the kitchen a moment later. She was wearing the same pale blue gown she’d had on when MacLeod had awoken, though he’d been so shocked that he had barely seen anything but her face at that moment. Now that he was a bit more together, he noticed how its color accentuated the red highlights in her hair and how the gown’s front was stained at the bottom from where she’d been kneeling on the damp ground in the garden.

Mac didn’t know what to expect from her when she saw them embracing like this, but the genuine smile she gave them was not it.

“You found each other, then,” she said, looking pleased, if tired. 

MacLeod was totally confused. The last time Cassandra and Methos had been in a room together, she’d left in a fury because MacLeod wouldn’t allow her to take Methos’ head, but here they were, speaking civilly. He could only imagine what it had taken to get them to this point. But he was glad to see it. He didn’t want there to be bad blood between his friends.

“Yes,” Methos answered, his entire body seeming to tense at the sight of her for some reason.

“I’m going to go down to soak in the hot springs for a few hours,” Cassandra said. “I’m totally worn out.”

“Will you, ah…be needing to see me before you go?” Methos asked in a subdued voice, seeming to steel himself.

Mac didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he could feel the raw fear in his friend’s muscles.

Cassandra gave a weary shake of her head. “No, we’ll talk later.”

Methos gave a tight nod. As she turned to enter a door off the kitchen, that Mac guessed led to the basement, Methos called, “Cassandra?”

“Yes?” she paused and came over to the table to help herself to one of the sandwiches that hadn’t been drenched with tea.

“Thank you…for this,” Methos gestured at him, “…and for the time.”

“Time?” for a second, she appeared confused. Then understanding seemed to hit. Looking stricken, Cassandra said, “Methos…” appearing very conscious of his own stare, Cassandra said to Methos, “We will talk later in private. Right now…you are most welcome. Enjoy,” Cassandra said in a tone that MacLeod would have almost called fond had it not been addressed to Methos. Then, before she could clear his bewilderment, she picked up her sandwich and a glass of milk and went through that door.

“You two seem very cozy,” Mac declared, trying to lift the shadows from those eyes with something like a joke, but neither of them were up to it. His voice was still too gruff from disuse for either of them to pretend things were normal yet.

Methos simply breathed out a slow breath and said, “It’s been hard on her, being here with me.”

“And on you?” MacLeod questioned, trying to get a grip on just what had brought Methos to this state of near collapse.

“I got what I deserved,” Methos shrugged and made a visible effort to change the subject, “Are you hungry? Do you want lunch?”

“I want some answers,” MacLeod said somberly, hoping that knowledge of what had occurred would help him shake off the hurt inside him so that he could be happy like he knew he should. He was free again and, if not home, then at least with Methos, which equated to the same thing. It didn’t make any sense that he would still be this…burdened.

“Fair enough,” Methos agreed. “Do you want to talk in the kitchen or…?”

“Do we have a bedroom here?” Mac asked. Cassandra had said she’d be busy for a couple of hours, but he didn’t want any more interruptions. He wanted answers and some time alone with Methos, not necessarily in that order. Though, right now he didn’t want that privacy for the usual reason. All he really wanted was to soak up his lover’s reassuring presence.

Methos’ face became very gentle as he nodded, “Yes, we do. It’s the last door on the right behind you.”

They hadn’t let go of each other yet. Methos didn’t look like he planned on getting out of hugging distance for a millennium or two and, while Mac knew he wasn’t responding inside the way he should be, the closeness wasn’t intrusive. In fact, it felt good, just not as visceral as he thought it should after such an extended separation.

Methos’ right arm was a warm weight on his shoulder as his own left arm wound around that too-slender waist. MacLeod allowed himself to be led to the indicated room. As the door opened and he viewed the bedroom he had no conscious memory of inhabiting, he was struck with that same strange sense of familiarity again. That painting beside the bed, the oil lamp, the rug…all of it felt like something out of a dream.

“Do you want to take that coat off?” Methos asked once the door had closed behind them.

Mac nodded. He moved far enough back from Methos so that he wouldn’t strike him while getting his arm out and eased the overcoat off his shoulders. He tossed it onto a straight back chair in the corner. 

When he turned back to his companion, Methos’ gaze was avidly following his every move, an almost amazed expression on his face.

“What is it?” MacLeod asked, a little unnerved by the attention.

“I’m sorry…it’s just so wonderful to see you moving about on your own again,” Methos explained, looking so happy it made Mac feel guilty for asking such a stupid question. Of course, Methos wasn’t able to take his eyes off him. The man had been caring for him up here on this mountain for God knew how long. While it didn’t seem strange to MacLeod himself to be moving and speaking, obviously it was a novelty for his companions. 

As he watched, Methos’ recently dried gaze softened, “You’re still feeling out of it – aren’t you?”

He gave a hesitant nod. The last thing he wanted to do was insult or hurt Methos, but the insight in those weary eyes told him that his lover had a fair idea of what was going on inside him.

“Come, sit down on the bed,” Methos suggested. “I think you’re still a bit shocky.”

Mac perched on the edge, running his palm over the cool smoothness of the blue comforter. Textures and colors still seemed to hold an unnatural fascination for him. Realizing what he was doing and feeling his friend watching him, MacLeod looked up and quickly apologized, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me….”

“You spent eight months locked in a car trunk dying again and again of privation,” Methos quietly informed. “You’ve got a right to be a little off your game.”

“It was as long as that?” Mac started.

“Yes…I’m sorry.”

Hearing the guilt in Methos’ bleak tone, MacLeod said, “You’ve nothing to be sorry for. Cassandra told me that you rescued me. If it weren’t for you I’d still be trapped there.”

“That was kind of her. But did she tell you as well that if it weren’t for me, it wouldn’t have happened to you at all,” Methos corrected. He hadn’t come any closer to the bed. He was still standing exactly where MacLeod had left him when he’d stepped away to remove his coat, looking like a prisoner in the dock awaiting judgment.

“What are you talking about?” Mac questioned. “How could any of this possibly be your fault?” 

MacLeod could almost feel the act of will it required for the exhausted man to meet his gaze.

“It was Alexander Longford who had you kidnapped,” Methos said, sounding like he was confessing to the crime himself.

“And Ritchie killed….” Duncan softly added. He searched for the hatred that should have been there, but wasn’t. It was weird. He knew he should be enraged at Longford, but the only thing he felt was that terrible aching inside at the thought of poor Ritchie. 

His face growing even paler, Methos nodded, “And Ritchie killed.” After an empty silence, Methos softly informed, “We buried him with Tessa. I hope that’s all right?”

Mac nodded, grateful. “Tell me the rest?”

“There’s not much to tell. I…went a little crazy. Hell, that’s not true, I…lost it totally. I kept seeing you in my dreams buried alive somewhere …when I slept at all. I spent months searching for you in every conceivable manner. But I didn’t find you until Longford called to make the exchange.”

“Your life for mine?” Duncan guessed.

Methos nodded.

“Did you take him?” Mac asked, feeling something at last. If Methos hadn’t killed the bastard, MacLeod would do so as soon as he found his katana.

Methos gave a slow, negative shake of his head. “No, I gave him to you.”

“Huh?”

As Methos relayed the rest of the story, MacLeod began to get a sense of the living nightmare this must have been for his lover. He didn’t need to hear it; he could see what this ordeal had cost his companion in Methos’ haggard features and flensed flesh. Methos looked like the one who had been buried alive, and, perhaps in a way, he was, MacLeod realized, seeing even now the distance his friend kept. Methos was clearly buried under a guilt that eclipsed even what Mac felt over Ritchie’s loss. 

“I was unconscious for how long?” MacLeod asked when Methos came to that part of his tale.

“Nearly two months,” Methos somehow made it sound as if that were his fault as well.

“And you took care of me all that time?” Mac was…humbled when he realized just what was involved here. Most people would have hired a nurse or left him in a long-term care facility on holy ground until he recovered. That Methos had troubled himself with such unpleasantries as changing diapers – of which MacLeod could still see two unopened plastic bags stacked by the dresser – was incredibly moving. He’d known the ancient Immortal loved him, but that type of service went above and beyond the call of either love or duty, especially when dealing with this sometimes lazy man whose usual answer to physical drudgery or toil was ‘get someone in to do it.’

Methos’ eyelids lowered almost demurely. “It was no big deal, Mac.”

“No big deal? My God, man….”

“Joe and Grace helped,” Methos said, sounding like he was attempting to downplay his own involvement.

About to continue his former line of discussion, Mac was temporarily sidetracked. “Grace?”

“Chandell,” Methos supplied. “Joe was understandably doubtful of my lack of current medical experience, so he called her in for a consultation.”

“Grace doesn’t even know Dawson,” Mac said, experiencing that weird sense of everything being just the slightest bit off again.

Methos chuckled. “She does now. Quite well, in fact. Biblically, even. They’ve set up housekeeping in Paris.”

“Grace and Joe Dawson…?” Mac repeated, trying to get his mind around the idea of his old lover and closest mortal friend finding something together. The idea wasn’t as unthinkable as it had initially seemed. Joe Dawson would be good for Grace, while Grace…MacLeod didn’t know many men Grace wouldn’t be good for. She was a truly special lady.

Methos nodded and gave the first comment he’d made today that sounded anything like his normal droll self, “They are nauseatingly adorable.”

Mac felt his lips turn up in a small smile. “I’m glad for them.”

“Yes, Joe was due some happiness. None of this was easy on him,” Methos said.

Looking at how his absence and recovery had ravaged Methos, MacLeod thought his lover’s previous statement something of the kettle calling the pot black. But he kept the thought to himself, not wanting to make his friend self-conscious.

Trying to get an idea of just what had been happening to him these last few months, Mac said, “You said you found me last Halloween and that I was unconscious for two months. It’s got to be April or May out there now. What…what happened to me in between? I’ve got…no memories at all of this place and yet, it all seems so familiar….”

For the first time since they’d entered the room, Methos seemed reluctant to answer his question. After a moment, Methos softly offered, “You’ve been…stuck between worlds. Your eyes have been open and you’ve been mobile since December, but your mind has been elsewhere.”

“How is that possible?”

Guilt, hesitation, maybe even fear, MacLeod was picking them all up from Methos as his lover answered with a sardonic flair, “Some would call it magic gone awry.”

“Cassandra…?” It didn’t sound like the kind of mistake that a woman who could shape shift into a wolf at will would make.

Methos gave a negative shake of his head, “No, I’m the culprit here. Cassandra arrived two weeks ago. She has been working with you for most of that time, exhausting herself trying to undo the damage my bumbling inflicted on you.”

Now he was sure he was dreaming, but Methos seemed perfectly serious. 

“Your bumbling? What are you talking about?” Mac demanded, still not understanding.

“I know Joe Dawson told you I knew Myrddid the Magician. I…was his apprentice for decades. I tried to heal you and didn’t have the skill. I mucked it up and was too scared of doing more harm to try it again.”

Methos was completely serious, Mac realized, still unable to believe what he was hearing. “You…healed me with…magic?”

Looking crest-fallen, Methos shook his head and corrected, “I tried, but I…mucked it up.”

“So you sent for Cassandra?” Mac questioned.

“No,” Methos said. “To be honest, it never even occurred to me. I was hoping you’d come around on your own.”

“So how did she get here?” MacLeod asked, trying to make sense of the events at least. The magic part was still too much for him to wrap his mind around. He was accepting it because Methos said he’d done it, but…believing it was another story. For now, he’d stick to the cold, hard facts and sort the rest out later when he wasn’t so…confused.

“She, too, dreamt of your captivity. She’d been searching for you for more than a year when she showed up on our door,” Methos explained.

“And you let her in?” Mac still couldn’t get his mind around this. He’d seen the totally understandable hatred Cassandra bore her former captor. She wanted Methos’ head and, although MacLeod couldn’t allow her to take it, he totally understood the revenge that drove her. That Methos would chance his head like that for his sake got past even the wall around Mac’s emotions and moved him. He owed this incredible man so much.

Yet, Methos was still standing there looking like a guilty penitent. Mac saw those slender shoulders shrug, and then Methos said, “I’d run out of options, Mac. I’d have made a deal with Beelzebub himself if he’d shown up at our door promising a cure.”

Seeing the truth of that in those desperately weary features, Mac swallowed hard. To be so loved…he felt so unworthy of this. Methos’ devotion deserved passionate recompense, not this distant guilt and gratitude that barely penetrated the wall buffering MacLeod from his emotions. He could see how his unnatural reserve was hurting Methos, who was standing there looking like he expected to be punished for loving him beyond sanity or reason.

“Methos?” Mac choked out.

“Yes?”

“Come here,” Mac patted the bed beside him.

There shouldn’t have been hesitation or reluctance, not after how long Methos had toiled to get him back, but it was there. Methos came slowly over to him, taking the seat beside him as though he expected to be beheaded or tortured.

Studying his lover, Mac realized that it was his own attitude affecting Methos. The man was already self-conscious about what he’d confessed, blaming himself for things that were outside of anyone’s control. MacLeod realized that he would normally have been a lot warmer and supportive in the discussion they’d just had. He would have told Methos straight off that he wasn’t to blame for any of this. Instead, he’d sat here like a bump on a log, unable to reach out from behind this barrier that was keeping him from feeling anything too deeply. That damn wall was making him hurt the last person in this world who deserved it.

It shouldn’t have been an effort, but Mac had to force himself to reach out and put his hand on Methos’ too slender back. The doubt in those dark ringed eyes made Mac hate himself. This was just not right. This man deserved so much more than this.

“You’re not to blame for any of this,” Mac said, wanting to get that much out, even if he couldn’t give anything better.

“If it weren’t for me, Longford would never have--”

“He made those choices, not you,” Mac said. 

He could see it in Methos’ eyes that the other man was unconvinced. Knowing what Methos needed, Mac reached out his other hand to embrace him, only to have Methos stop his hand midair.

“You don’t want to touch me,” Methos said, his expression like stone…the kind you saw in ancient ruins, cracked and pitted, ready to crumble at the slightest touch. “I can see it in your eyes. Don’t force yourself.”

Mac froze. He was hurting inside too much to really be aware of how he was affecting others. He’d only wanted to help, but he could see now that he’d cut Methos to the quick.

“I’m sorry,” Mac said, hearing how dead his gruff voice sounded to even his own ears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me….”

Methos drew in a deep breath. It seemed to require every bit of energy he had to answer, “It’s not your fault.”

Mac could see whose fault Methos thought it was clearly reflected in those red-rimmed, hazel eyes. Normally, he would have made an instant denial of that unspoken self-accusation and reassured Methos both verbally and physically, but for the first time in their acquaintanceship, Mac didn’t know how to reach out to his friend, how to make this right between them, so he tried with, “I-I don’t mean to hurt you.”

But he was. He could see how his stumbling efforts were falling flat, adding salt to open wounds rather than assuaging them. He was ripping pieces out of his lover without even trying. And it wasn’t as though Methos were being oversensitive, either. It was clear the man had finally reached his emotional limits, that he was trying to be strong for MacLeod, but that he just didn’t have anything of himself left to give. Methos was as scarred by this last year as he was, perhaps even more so, because he’d been conscious the full time and carried the responsibility and burden. Mac had never seen his lover more in need of solace, and he just didn’t know how to offer that comfort from within this icy shell encasing his emotions.

“I know,” Methos said, looking quickly away, but not before Mac saw the brightness welling in his abused looking eyes.

It was just so fucking unfair. Methos didn’t deserve this kind of disappointing reunion. Why couldn’t he just be happy, the way he should, Mac wondered.

This time Methos didn’t seem to have the strength in him to shake Mac off when he embraced him. He burrowed his wet face into the front of the Highlander’s salmon colored shirt while Mac just sat there like a stump, awkwardly holding his lover while Methos quietly fell apart. Mac recognized the results of exhaustion and stress when he saw them, even if he no longer had the sense of how to offer the comfort that was so terribly needed.

Finally, Methos took a deep, sobbing breath and pulled back. “I’m sorry. I…”

Mac shook his head. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’m still…broken inside. I…I think maybe I need to get away for a while...and get my head together…someplace where I won’t be hurting you all the time….”

It was soon for that kind of statement, Mac knew, but he didn’t see things getting any better for him any time real soon and he didn’t want to keep gouging out pieces of Methos’ heart with his lack of consideration. Of course, what he’d just blurted out qualified as a whopper of a thoughtless act.

At first, the blunt words seemed to finish what he’d started – totally destroy his lover – but then, something strange flashed across Methos’ face. If he didn’t know better, Mac would have classified the fleeting emotions as inspiration and relief.

“Perhaps…that’s not a bad idea. We’ve both always gone walkabout when things get too rough,” Methos stiffly agreed.

For some reason, MacLeod was struck by the odd sense that the wool was being pulled over his eyes, but he didn’t see how. He just suddenly felt like he was being conned here, which made no sense since it was he himself who had issued the proposal.

“I don’t _want_ to leave you,” Mac insisted. “I just--”

“Need some space,” Methos finished. “I understand.”

“I don’t,” Mac admitted. “All those months when I was locked up, I thought I’d be…overjoyed to be back. I wanted nothing more than to be alone with you in a bed, but…nothing is working right inside me.”

“You need to heal,” Methos said, sounding much more himself. “You will. Just…give it time.”

“Can you…” it was a hell of a thing to ask after everything Methos had done for him this year, but Mac loved this man too much to leave things like this, “…would you be willing to wait for me?”

“I have waited for you my entire life,” Methos gave him a sad smile. “A few more weeks or months will hardly matter. And, I need to do my own healing, as well. Would you…”

“Yes?” Mac encouraged when the uncertain words died away.

“Would you be willing just to…lie down beside me for a short while…just to rest? Then, when we get up, we can make your arrangements. Your katana is in the blue case over there.”

The pain inside him ballooning at that heart-breaking request, Mac lay back on the mattress, drawing his companion down beside him. Methos looked like he’d forgotten what rest or sleep were, and as for himself…he was ridiculously tired for a man who’d done nothing more physically demanding for months than walk across a room.

Though Methos appeared so exhausted that he wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes open once his head hit the pillow, he turned on his side to face him. Eyes opened wide, that purple-bagged gaze watched him from across the pillow, seeming to drink in his presence. If MacLeod didn’t know better, he’d swear Methos were memorizing everything about this moment.

Very aware of the fact that they weren’t really touching, for all their proximity, MacLeod reached out and laid his hand across Methos, banding both his arms and sternum. 

“I want things to be better again,” Mac whispered.

Mac didn’t understand the sadness in Methos’ expression and tone as he answered, “They already are. Once you heal, this will be but another bad memory.”

“For us both,” Mac tiredly offered.

“Yes, of course,” Methos replied.

Sensing that he’d just been lied to, but having no clue as to what the nature of the lie could be, MacLeod studied that beloved face. Methos looked so haggard that it hurt to gaze upon him.

After a few minutes, Methos slipped his outer arm from beneath MacLeod’s embrace and covered Mac’s forearm with his hand, pressing it tight to his stomach. “Duncan?”

“Mmmm?” he mumbled, a lovely sense of lethargy overtaking him. Perhaps if he slept a while, that wall around his heart mightn’t be so very thick when he awoke.

He forced his sluggish eyes open when he heard the gulp Methos gave.

“I, ah, never really told you this before, but…I do…love you. Being with you…made up for everything that came before.”

The sense of finality in Methos’ attitude puzzled him until he realized that Methos might believe he had no plans of returning to him once he left. Already beginning to question the wisdom of his proposed leaving, MacLeod softly assured, “I love you, too. And…I will be back. I swear it.” 

Methos forced a smile. “I know. Sleep now. You’ll feel better when you awake.”

“You, too,” MacLeod urged, thinking that he’d never seen a man who needed the rest more.

“I’ll sleep soon enough,” Methos said in a strangely foreboding tone, but then he smiled and leaned forward to place a light kiss on Mac’s forehead.

Thinking that maybe everything might be all right when he woke up, after all, Mac allowed his tiredness to overtake him and gave into sleep.

******************

Life was rarely what you expected it to be, Methos acknowledged as he lay still beside Duncan, watching him sleep. The man was still shell-shocked from his abrupt reawakening. There had been so much to take in, so many shocks, one on top of the other. Mac had bourn them all with his typical courage, but Methos could see how his lover was still bleeding inside. It only stood to reason that it would be a while before Mac were feeling himself again. The last thing the poor guy had needed was to deal with his own breakdowns, Methos acknowledged, hating how he’d fallen apart on Mac.

Methos studied the handsome face beside him on their shared pillow, already seeing the changes. The innocence that had typified MacLeod’s slumber for the last six months was still there, but there was far more expression to his sleeping face as he dreamed. The difference was subtle, but noticeable.

Methos breathed a sigh of relief, offering up a quiet prayer of thanks to whatever deity had taken pity on them. Mac would be all right now. He would heal and grow stronger, while Methos himself….

He had a bargain to keep.

Though it had hurt to hear Mac make the perfectly understandable suggestion that they separate for a time, it would actually fit in well with his plans. He would speak to Cassandra about waiting until Duncan was gone to fulfill their bargain. In his present shocked state, Methos thought it highly unlikely that MacLeod would feel it when Cassandra took his head. Though his death would doubtlessly hurt Mac when he eventually learned of it, his lover would have no way of knowing that he hadn’t been another victim of this stupid Game they played. Mac would heal in time, as he always had in the past.

But…what if she didn’t want to wait, Methos thought. He couldn’t blame her. If their positions were reversed, he’d want to take his payment immediately and be on his way. He wasn’t fool enough to believe that there would be no repercussions with Mac were Cassandra to take his head this afternoon. Even if she told Mac about their bargain, he wouldn’t believe her. 

Why it was so important that he protect her, Methos didn’t understand. Perhaps he felt that way because she had cured Mac for him as she’d promised. Or maybe it was a bit more complicated than that. Perhaps it had to do with those thousand regrets of his that lay heavy on his heart at night. All he knew was that he did not want for her to suffer again because of what he’d done to her in the distant past. His actions had hurt her so badly, twisted her up inside with a hate so fierce that it still flamed bright three thousand years later. Weary to the soul, Methos could only admire that type of fire.

Recognizing that Mac’s nap might be the only opportunity he had to address this problem, Methos leaned forward and kissed his lover’s brow again, then quietly slipped from under his arm and out of the bed. 

Aware that he might not be returning should Cassandra require immediate satisfaction, Methos eased the nightstand drawer open and took out the pad and pen he kept there. For a long time, he stared at the blank white paper, not knowing what to say. It wasn’t quite as melodramatic as a suicide note, but these final thoughts would sum up the whole of his existence. Knowing that, he was coming up as blank as the paper. Finally, he just wrote:

_Mac,_

_If you love me, you won’t hurt her._

_The bargain was my idea and choice._

_Live and grow stronger, Highlander._

_Yours always,_

_Methos_

He wanted to say a lot more, but…anything else would have been maudlin. So he folded the paper and stood there wondering where he should put it. If everything worked out as planned, he would be back before MacLeod awoke from his nap and his friend would never need see this note. But if he didn’t make it back, it had to be somewhere Mac would find it before he took her head.

His gaze fell upon the blue bag over by the dresser. He’d told Mac his sword was in there. If he put the note in with it, Mac would have to see it before he took any action. And it would be out of the way inside the case, not stumbled upon by chance. 

Pleased, Methos bent to slip the note in with Mac’s sword.

Straightening up, he paused beside the bed on his way out for a long moment, just drinking in the sight of Mac sleeping. He truly felt like he’d loved this man forever, and, in some ways, it appeared he had. Cassandra had said that Mac had been Artos, and Methos knew for a fact that Mac had been Michel as well. Apparently, Duncan had been his three greatest loves, the relationships that it had almost killed him to lose. Had there ever been a more star-crossed pair of souls, Methos pondered, imagining traces of both his former lovers in Mac’s peaceful visage. If what Methos suspected were true, there was little wonder neither Mac nor he had been able to resist each other. They’d been trying to get it right for millennia.

Looking down at Mac, Methos allowed himself to remember the man whose name he never allowed to take root in his mind – Artos, the boy-king who had won his heart on that bridge with his courage and ridiculous sense of honor, the man he had loved with all his soul and never dared touch. Together, Artos and he had made the world a better place back then…and Methos had single-handedly brought it down around their ears. He’d never gotten the opportunity to tell Artos he was sorry.

And poor Michel…the guilt of that affair hardly ever left him. Methos had known from the start that it was a disaster in the making, but, as with Duncan, he hadn’t been able to resist the beautiful idealist who had loved him more than life itself, and died for his sake. There had been no time for an _I’m sorry_ there, either.

As much as he’d cherished them both, neither of those men had moved him on the levels Duncan MacLeod did. From the day the Highlander had walked into Adam Pierson’s apartment searching for information on the legendary Methos, his heart had been lost. At least he hadn’t cost Duncan his life, Methos thought. He’d come damned close to it, but he’d managed to get Mac back. In time, his friend would heal. And once Cassandra took his head, this tragic dance would stop forever and Methos wouldn’t cost those stupid enough to love him their lives anymore. Duncan would flourish and become everything he was meant to be.

Grateful that he’d finally gotten the opportunity to get it right, Methos gave Duncan one last kiss and slipped from the bedroom to look for Cassandra.

She wasn’t downstairs in the hot springs, or in her room, or even in the garden.

The sun was setting behind the mountains out back when Methos stepped outside to search for her. It was just visible as a bright orange spot in a strip of clear sky between the heavy gray clouds that covered most of the valley and the towering alpine peaks. The magentas, pinks, lilacs and oranges tinting the clouds were truly breathtaking. Were she to take his head now, he couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful sunset to die under.

Not that he wanted to die. With Mac back, he wanted more than ever to live, but…he was through running. He’d made a bargain with her. Cassandra had kept her end of it. He’d keep his. He only prayed she’d be willing to put off the inevitable until Duncan was away from here.

Closing his eyes, he searched for her Immortal signature, and felt the faintest traces of it from the far side of the ruins. Methos gingerly made his way through the tumbled down chapel. Climbing out on the other side, he searched the orange-tinted valley for her. There, way down by the gushing stream, he could see a bright spot of pale blue on the boulders. He shivered at the sight of her, for in this uncertain light, she looked like something that had wandered across from another plane, the Lady of the Lake or perhaps a power even older than that. 

Realizing that she was very far off holy ground, Methos wondered if she were waiting there for him to keep his end of their deal. He didn’t see a sword present, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t in the grass by the boulder she was sitting on.

Taking a deep breath, Methos slowly crossed the soggy field to meet her. The grass was just springing up underfoot, the entire world about to explode with life. It would be a dramatic Quickening, here in this wild place, he thought.

Cassandra was more wraith than woman as she sat on that rock, staring down at the gurgling stream, as though listening to it speak. He stood behind her for a time, but she didn’t turn to look at him. She had to know he was here, Methos thought. It wasn’t like Immortals could ever sneak up on each other when there were only two of them in so deserted a venue.

Recognizing that she might very well be spirit walking, Methos cleared his throat and softly said, “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

She sighed and slowly turned to look at him from her seat on the gray boulder. “You’re not. I was just thinking of you.”

“Oh?” he tried not to sound alarmed, but probably failed miserably. He wasn’t brave like MacLeod. He didn’t know how to do death heroically. 

“Do you know what Duncan told me on the spirit plane before I brought him back today?” she asked.

He slowly shook his head, wary of her, for he had no idea what hurtful thing Duncan might have shared with her.

“He said that he was searching for a time when the two of you could be together. He took me through Artos’ life three times last week.” Methos had no idea why she was telling him this. There was nothing in her words that could be used as ammunition. To the contrary, it was almost a gift. He sharpened his attention as she continued, “This afternoon it was a young man named…” she stopped and stared at him, as if testing him.

“Michel,” Methos completed, braced for the blast that must come. Who could look at how he’d ruined those lives and not censure him?

“That’s right,” she said, falling quiet again.

Myrddid used to do things like this, damn him with silence, Methos remembered, tensing as he waited. But she didn’t say anything else for the longest time. Methos stared at the silver water gushing by, his gaze moving to the heavy red buds on the bushes and small trees around the stream, shivering to speak of death in a place with so much new life bursting out around them. Finally, Methos gulped and forced himself to address his reason for seeking her out. “Mac is going to be leaving…probably tomorrow morning. I wondered if you might be persuaded to wait until he’s gone before we fulfill our bargain? I – I'd rather spare him that.”

There, it was said.

The sharp glance she cast his way was hardly encouraging. Steeling his heart, Methos prepared for the worst. The Quickening might not be visible back at the cottage, but he wouldn’t bet on it.

“What do you mean _Mac is leaving_?” she demanded.

That wasn’t what he’d anticipated her taking issue with. Gulping in a breath, for he really didn’t have nerves of steel when it came to offering his head more than once in a night, Methos softly explained, “He’s still pretty traumatized by what’s happened. He needs some time alone to regroup…I thought if we waited till he left, it wouldn’t add to his burdens….”

She was staring at him as though he’d taken complete leave of his senses. He didn’t know if that was any better than being regarded as the Anti-Christ. That, at least had accorded him some degree of competence.

“Will you do it?” his nerves finally cracked.

“Do what?” she asked, looking completely bewildered.

“Wait to keep our bargain?” Methos stood utterly still, waiting to see if he’d be granted that one-day reprieve.

The gentleness which softened her face was completely unexpected. Those bewitching green eyes appraised him for an uncomfortable eternity before Cassandra finally sighed and said, “I don’t want your head, not anymore.”

For a second, he thought she was mocking him, her statement was just so unbelievable, but then he saw she was in earnest. His next words passed his lips before he had the sense to think about what he was saying, “What? Why not?”

“Several reasons. Let’s just say that a healer doesn’t barter for her services and leave it at that,” Cassandra replied, appearing uncomfortable.

“It was I who made the offer,” Methos reminded.

“It doesn’t matter,” she dismissed. “I cannot profit through my Lady’s mercy.”

“Cassandra, I don’t want to live my life waiting for you to jump out of a dark alley with a sword in hand. I – I’d rather we finish it here, after Mac leaves tomorrow,” Methos forced himself to say. He’d made this deal. She had every right to the vengeance she’d waited three millennia to claim.

“Oh, for…I can’t do it – all right? Not now, not a year from now, not a century from now, not ever. It’s over.”

“But….” seeing the truth of her words, he almost sagged with relief. Still, he had to understand. “Cassandra, why? Is it…because of Mac?”

That was the only thing he could think of, that she didn’t want to add to her old friend’s losses.

She was quiet for a time, staring down at him with that feline wariness. Finally, she softly admitted, “Mac had something to do with it. As you noted the night I arrived, it was my indiscretion with Longford that made Duncan a target. Beyond that…I know what his life has been like. He’s had more than his share of tragedy. I won’t add to it by taking the head of the man he’s spent three lifetimes trying to love.”

The lump in his throat nearly as huge as the boulder Cassandra was sitting on, Methos swallowed hard and rasped out, “I know that you don’t spare me for my sake, but I thank you all the same, Cassandra.” He wished he could say more, but he knew how abhorrent he was to her, so he finished with, “I’m…grateful. You and I both know I don’t merit mercy. I wish I could change that, but…the past is already written. I know my presence bothers you…I’m – I'm going to go back inside now.”

“Methos?” she said as he turned to leave her.

“Yes?” he froze, almost afraid of her, because she was something more powerful and brilliant than this world had seen in fifteen-hundred years. Myrddid was speaking through her tonight, as was her Lady. 

“I don’t do it just for Duncan. The man I’ve spent three-thousand years hating…he doesn’t exist anymore.”

One wouldn’t think such soft words could destroy a man, but they just about cut Methos’ legs out from under him. He simply wasn’t prepared for them.

“W-what?” he stammered.

“I’ve watched how you are with Duncan. Through his spirit’s rovings, I’ve seen how you’ve been for the past few millennia. Death is dead, Methos. Were I to take your head now, I’d be killing one of my Lady’s chosen,” Cassandra explained, obviously uncomfortable, but determined to offer him this courtesy.

She completely undid him. He’d expected her to kill him tonight, or delay it and scorn him for his cowardice, but this….

His nerves frayed beyond repair, he was appalled to feel his emotions burst out of him, as they already had twice with Duncan today. The tears were streaming hot down his face and he was shaking all over. That she would forgive him when he’d come here with every intention of settling their debt…it was just too much to accept. 

To his astonishment, warm arms encircled him. As he had that day in the Paris train yards when Amanda had accused him of setting her up, he broke down totally, sobbing in the arms of a woman who had every right to kill him. But she didn’t kill him. She stroked his back, and let him cry on her shoulder, and when he was cried out and too ashamed to meet her gaze, she lifted his chin and smiled at him, glowing like the goddess she represented in this world of disbelievers. 

“Live and grow stronger, Methos. Duncan needs you,” smiling gently, she reached out to brush the last of his tears away. “I’m going to go back to the cottage now. Do you want to come with me?”

Still shaken by what had passed between them, he gave a negative shake of his head. “Not just yet. I need…”

“Some time to think,” she nodded. “I’ll start dinner.”

He watched her slide gracefully down from the stone she’d been perched on and begin to walk away in the twilight through the damp, fragrant field.

“Cassandra!”

“Yes?” she paused, nothing wary in her anymore. She looked…like the incarnation of her Lady, strong, confident, as wild and free as the stream rushing past them.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to…be that kind,” he lamely completed, very aware that he could never, ever repay her for what she’d given him here tonight.

She just gave him another one of those inscrutable, small smiles she’d bestowed upon him and corrected, “Yes, I did. I’ll see you back at the house.”

Shaken to the very core of his being, Methos sank down upon the damp, cold stone she’d just vacated and watched her cross the field.

*******************

MacLeod was alone in the bed when he opened his eyes, and alone in the house as well, from everything he could tell when he searched for other Immortals in the area. He lay there in the comfort of the big, old four poster bed, staring up at the ceiling, the memory of the pain that had bolted through Methos’ face when he’d announced his plan to leave haunting him like Caesar’s ghost had Brutus. And with good reason. He’d been an utter moron.

He didn’t wake up feeling healed and wonderful. His emotions were still in some kind of weird stasis, but at least his mind was operating a bit better. Mac didn’t know what the answer to his current problem was, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t skipping out on Methos. How he could ever have thought such a stupid thing in the first place only proved that he wasn’t himself. Leave Methos? True, he didn’t like hurting his friend the way he inadvertently had this afternoon, but what could hurt him worse than leaving him? He’d promised this man that he’d stay until there was no hope left for them, and they were so far away from that point that Mac couldn’t even think of it as a serious option. They weren’t without hope. They’d just been given their lives back together again. Everything was new and filled with infinite possibilities. So, why had he been so stupid as to voice that idea? Methos had already felt guilty over things that had been out of his control. God only knew how his lover must be feeling now. It must have felt like he were confirming every one of Methos’ guilts and doubts.

Sighing, Mac wished he’d had the sense to keep his mouth shut. But it was hardly the first time he’d spoken first and inserted foot later. He was just going to have to make things right with Methos. That was all that was to it.

Feeling better now that he at least had a plan, Mac swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He had no idea where Methos and Cassandra could have gone. As far as he’d been able to see, this cottage and the surrounding ruins were the only things for miles except mountains. He didn’t like the idea of them being out there alone together. Having Cassandra and Methos in the same place at the same time was akin to handling nitroglycerine. You could try to keep the bottle cool, but sooner or later, you knew it was going to explode in your face. 

Figuring he’d better divert the catastrophe, Mac got up and fetched his coat from the chair on the other side of the room. He was headed for the door when the unnatural lightness of the hidden sheath reminded him of his vulnerable state. This might be holy ground, but there were those who weren’t above shooting another Immortal down on sacred ground and then dragging them off to deliver the coupe de grace. Recalling how Methos had said his sword was in the blue bag across the room, MacLeod crossed to the dresser. 

The sight of the unopened packs of adult diapers stacked there made him uncomfortable. In all his years, he’d never nursed anyone that way. He’d changed the occasional baby diaper, of course, and emptied more than his share of bedpans, but that was different than what Methos had done for him, less…intimate. He couldn’t imagine tending someone that way. The degree of patience and devotion it would require were mind-boggling. 

Trying to chase the disconcerting thoughts from his mind, he unzipped the long, blue canvas bag. There was a piece of paper on top of the bag’s contents when he opened it. Mac put the paper on his knee and reached inside to withdraw the long, velvet-wrapped bundle within. He could almost feel his katana lying there in the soft black material.

A sweet thrill singing through him, he carefully unwrapped his weapon, tracing the dragons carved on its ivory hilt with the same reverence he felt when he traced that scar on Methos’ forehead. They were both such an integral part of his life now that Mac couldn’t imagine functioning without either; though if he had to choose, the sword would definitely go. Smiling as he thought of his lover’s sardonic reaction to that dubious honor, Mac realized that he was feeling a hell of a lot better than he had when he’d come in this afternoon.

He moved to get to his feet, and the forgotten piece of paper on his knee tumbled to the floor. He was about to pick it up and stuff it back into Methos’ bag when his name printed in Methos’ clear, almost scribe-like handwriting caught his attention. Realizing that it was some kind of short note addressed to him, Mac read the words, his blood turning to ice at the first line.

_Mac,_

_If you love me, you won’t hurt her._

_The bargain was my idea and choice._

_Live and grow stronger, Highlander._

_Yours always,_

_Methos_

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the bargain Methos had written of must be. There was only one thing Cassandra would ever want from Methos.

And suddenly, his emotions weren’t separated behind that horrible wall anymore. He was terrified, as scared as he’d been when he’d died a few times in that stinking car trunk and realized that it was entirely possible that he would never be found. 

Methos had obviously agreed to trade his head for…for the healing she’d granted him, MacLeod realized, barely able to believe that the seductive enchantress of his boyhood could possibly agree to such an evil deal. 

His panic putting an ominous significance on the empty cottage, Mac leaped to his feet and raced for the door. 

The sun had set. It was past twilight, but not yet full darkness. There were two cars in the driveway, one of them Methos’ familiar Land Rover. The other a Ford rental. That meant they were still here someplace. Certainly not on holy ground, she wouldn’t do it there. The power throbbing through both the cottage and ruins announced that this was all holy ground. 

Mac looked to his left, but that appeared to be a driveway leading through a cemetery out to a road. The graveyard was definitely sacred ground, so that was out. And MacLeod didn’t think that Cassandra would take a chance of beheading Methos on a public road. This cottage might be remote, but there was nothing like a Quickening to catch a passing car’s attention.

No, they must have gone the other way - through the garden and abbey ruins to whatever lay behind them.

He was racing for the ruins at full speed when he saw Cassandra gingerly making her way through the tumbled down granite slabs in the encroaching darkness. Her pale blue gown picked up all available light, throwing it back with an eldritch aura.

Mac stumbled to a halt. Breathing hard, his heart racing, he felt completely out of shape as he waited for her to come to him. He was too late. Whatever had happened; it was over now. His stomach was in knots. He thought he’d know if Methos were taken, but with this distancing reserve buffering him, it was possible he’d miss his own beheading. He could see that Cassandra wasn’t armed, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t thrown her sword away after killing Methos.

“If you’ve killed him, I will take your head,” he warned her, sick at the thought. 

_Methos…._

“What?” she stopped where she was, a half a dozen feet back in an ankle-snapping tangle of broken granite and ivy vines.

“Where is Methos?” Mac demanded, very aware of the fact that he was threatening a woman. He was six inches taller than her and, even thin as he was, he still outweighed her by forty or fifty pounds. But if she’d killed Methos, he’d have her head.

Cassandra stared at him through the darkness for a minute, her eyes glowing silver in the dying light. Then she demanded in an equally angry tone, “What do you care where Methos is?”

Now it was his turn to gape, “What?” 

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

“I’ve never seen such ingratitude. He searched for you for over eight months, offered his head twice for your sake, and cared for you like a mother when you couldn’t wipe your own nose or bum…and you would reward him by walking away from him when he has the most need of you! You don’t have the right to ask where he is. It’s none of your damn business.”

He’d only heard her this angry once, when he’d forbidden her from taking Methos’ head in Bordeaux. 

“What have you done with him, Cassandra?” MacLeod made an effort to calm himself, but he was angry enough to shake the teeth from her head. No more buffering distance, that wall holding his feelings back was definitely broken, he realized. If anything, he was nearly out of control now.

“Would you really like to know what I did with him?” Cassandra questioned in that chilling, cool way she had of testing a man’s mettle.

“Cassandra…” he growled.

“If you must know, I held him in my arms while he sobbed his heart out,” she said softly, stopping him cold with her barely reigned contempt. Not of Methos, but of him, Mac realized.

Confused, he toned down the aggression. “Why-why was he crying?”

“Why do you think?” she countered.

Her eerie green stare made him feel twelve years old again. Only, when he had been that young, he’d had no cause to stand before her in shame. Now he felt…almost a criminal.

“If you value his life, you will not leave him,” Cassandra warned him with the air of a Delphi oracle. 

MacLeod could hardly credit how fiercely protective she sounded…of Methos, the man she’d wanted to behead the last time all three of them were together. Beginning to wonder exactly what had passed between the pair while he’d been…away, Mac quietly questioned, “What do you mean _if I value his life_?”

“He has given everything he is to you. He has withheld nothing, and therefore has no reserves to fall back upon. If you walk away from him now, he’ll let you go, but he won’t recover. He can’t. You will destroy him,” Cassandra warned.

“Why are you telling me this?” MacLeod questioned, utterly bewildered by this complete turnaround and shaken inside, because he knew she spoke the truth.

“Because I am your friend and you are about to lose something irreplaceable,” she answered. 

“You think Methos irreplaceable?” he echoed, astounded. He, of course, knew Methos’ worth, but that she would be able to see it…abruptly, Mac began to understand the tremendous sacrifices Methos must have made for him on a daily basis to win this enemy’s heart over.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “You don’t have the right to--” 

“Cassandra!”

They both swirled towards the road. They’d been so absorbed in their conversation that neither of them had sensed Methos’ approach, but there he was, passing the parked cars. Rather than make his way through the now pitch black ruins, Methos had obviously taken the sensible approach and cut through the field at a very wide angle to follow the road back to the cottage.

“Methos,” Duncan breathed a relieved sigh at the sight of his annoyed, but intact lover.

Methos stopped a few feet from them. MacLeod could almost feel the indignation pouring off his proud friend as Methos said to her, “You cannot command the heart. Duncan must do as he chooses.” Methos turned to him when he finished speaking to Cassandra. “Don’t listen to her, Mac. If you need to go, go. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. In fact, this place is getting somewhat claustrophobic. I’m going to pack my own things and--” Their eyes meeting, Methos stumbled to a halt, as though unable to voice the words.

_Leave before he could be left_ , MacLeod finished the thought for his lover, seeing how brittle his exhausted friend’s control was and how deeply Cassandra’s words had hurt Methos. Pride was all he had left. Mac recognized that he’d broken Methos’ heart this afternoon.

Knowing what he had to do, but not quite sure how, MacLeod stepped up to Methos. That exhausted gaze eyed him as though Methos had been offered a challenge and was about to lose his head. Understanding that it probably felt like that to his friend on an emotional level, Mac decided to make the only thing that was important to him clear to Methos. “If you go, I go with you. Please…I’m sorry about before. I know I hurt you. It’s no excuse, but…I’m still so confused I’m not sure which way is up. The only thing I know for certain is that I love you and want to be with you. Please, say you won’t leave me?” 

Methos gulped and glanced in Cassandra’s direction. At first Mac thought his friend was uncomfortable about having such an avowal voiced before an audience, but then Methos’ strained expression made it plain that he feared it was Cassandra’s words that had made MacLeod say what he had.

Most men would have assuaged their pride by turning on their heel and walking away, but most men didn’t have his Methos’ courage. Methos still looked like he feared he was making a dreadful mistake, but he stood firm. After a minute of simply staring at him, Methos held out his right hand to him, not in the position for a traditional handshake, but just hanging out there in the air, with his flat palm facing the ground and the expression in his eyes telling Mac he was waiting to have his heart handed back to him in pieces again.

Swallowing hard, Mac immediately took hold of that offered hand and used it to pull Methos closer. Ignoring their audience of one, MacLeod leaned in and kissed those tight-closed lips until they softened and became pliant.

Drawing back, MacLeod met those over-stressed eyes and repeated, “I’m sorry.”

Methos closed his eyes, took a deep breath and nodded.

Just another blow to his soul, locked away with all the other hurts, Mac realized. If there was one thing he was determined to do, it was put a stop to that. But this wasn’t the time for battles. This was the time for healing. So, he slipped his arm intimately around Methos’ waist and asked, “Come inside with me? I’m worn out.”

He was as buoyed by the burst of sheer pleasure that touching Methos sent through him as he was by his lover’s albeit hesitant nod of assent. At least one thing was returning to normal. Touching Methos felt good, not just on an emotional level, but on a visceral, cock-raising one.

They all entered the cottage together. 

Once they were inside with their coats hung up, Methos glanced towards the kitchen and then over to Cassandra. “Dinner--”

“Can wait,” she smiled. “I thought I might visit the hot springs again.”

To give them their privacy, Mac translated.

Methos startled him by gently protesting, “You’ll turn into a prune if you keep that up. It really isn’t necessary. We’re all adults.”

Cassandra nodded, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

She went down those stairs behind the door in the kitchen all the same.

Left alone, an awkwardness descended between them.

Mac studied this man that he loved so much, hating the wariness in those exhausted features. Methos looked so changed: the long hair, the flensed flesh, the weariness that seemed ingrained in him now…worst of all was the air of hurt that cloaked him. 

“I wasn’t lying before,” MacLeod said at last, not knowing if he could breach those formidable guards that had sprung up around Methos with Cassandra’s words, “I really am tired. Will you lay with me?”

Mac could see how that too-thin body tensed at his intentionally ambiguous wording. But although his apprehension was plain, Methos inclined his head in assent and reached out his hand to him again.

Ridiculously grateful, MacLeod grasped hold of his lover and interlaced their fingers, drawing Methos slowly back into their bedroom. The light on and door firmly closed behind them, he led Methos to the bed and released his hand.

Methos’ hand immediately moved to smooth down the hair on the right side of his head in a gesture that proclaimed his nervousness.

“We, ah, don’t have to do anything but sleep,” Mac said, thinking that he’d never seen anyone who needed it more. “I just want to hold you. Would that be all right?”

He didn’t know why, but his words seemed to hit Methos hard. He saw that thin form start, heard the short, hissed-in breath Methos gave.

“I’ve held you in my arms every night since December,” Methos said quietly. “You were never aware enough to hug me back. I’d like that.”

Starting to appreciate what had eaten the flesh off Methos’ body, MacLeod stepped forward and gathered the other man tight to his chest, trying not to notice the desperation in the arms that squeezed him back. All he’d ever wanted to do was ease his friend’s pain and loneliness, but loving him had brought Methos to the very brink of destruction. And he’d talked of leaving. Recognizing that he should be horse-whipped for the magnitude of his earlier inconsideration, Mac buried his nose in Methos’ shoulder and just held on.

They stood there for what felt like forever, with Methos gradually trusting more and more of his weight to his safekeeping. Realizing that the man he held was on the verge of falling asleep standing up, Mac eased them down onto the edge of the bed. Without waiting to be asked, he knelt down in front of his friend and quickly removed the hiking boots that Methos normally lived in. Smiling at the mismatched blue and black socks unveiled, he left them on, because he knew his friend felt the cold and the room was already chilly.

After dispensing with his own boots, Mac shucked off his jeans and shirt, tossing the dirty clothes onto the chair in the corner. When he turned back to the bed, Methos was watching him with that stunned look that was becoming familiar, like every tiny, independent act he performed was a major miracle. Recognizing that it was, Mac met that absorbed greenish gaze and slowly peeled his briefs off.

He heard the swallow Methos gave from four feet away.

Returning to the bed, he eased Methos back up onto his feet. Feeling that gaze watching his every move, Mac reached his hands between their waists to undo the button of Methos’ faded black jeans and unzip him. Unsurprised, he saw the sensitive flesh below surge to life as he carefully eased the zipper over that moving bulge and felt the tension that hardened the rest of Methos’ body.

He couldn’t imagine what caring for him must have been like for Methos – bathing, dressing and seeing to a million-and-one other intimate tasks for a man whose body was there, but whose mind was out to lunch.

Taking hold of the jeans’ waistband, he eased them over the nearly nonexistent hips and down the endless length of Methos’ dark-fuzzed legs. Bending down as he was, and being eye-to-eye with Methos’ waistline as it were, it was impossible to miss the heavy erection that was nudging through the placket of Methos’ gray and white boxers and tenting up the bottom of his loose gray Henley.

He’d said that they’d just sleep, but Methos’ body obviously had other ideas…as though anyone could blame him after nearly a year and a half of enforced celibacy. Mac wondered if he should ask permission, but then realized that that would break the gentle mood that had formed between them and interrupt the natural flow of things. So, he reached out and nudged aside the bottom of Methos’ shirt to bare the cock had hadn’t seen in God knew how long to the light.

Methos was as big and beautiful as ever…and growing as he watched.

The small, pleading, sex sound that Methos made as MacLeod collected that moist shaft into his hand shot right through the Highlander, making his own hand shake nearly as badly as the wobbly legs that were struggling to hold Methos up. He was hardly surprised when Methos’ hands shot out to brace themselves on his shoulders. If Methos hadn’t, the tremors shaking his long frame would have tumbled them both to the Oriental-carpeted floor.

Savoring the feel of that needy organ, Mac’s fingers stroked it to fullness, slowly and lovingly. The helpless sob from above finally brought home how unintentionally cruel he was being. It had obviously been far too long for Methos to go slow. As much as Mac was enjoying drawing the experience out, he realized that he was torturing this man who had waited ages to be touched by him again.

Without further delay, he sucked that hungry cock into his mouth, cherishing the salty, musky that jolted through him. So long…it had been so god damned long….

He opened his throat wide and swallowed his lover down. His excitement rising, Mac could feel the energy spiraling between them. That strange vortex was beginning to form, beckoning to him with seductive promise, but…it was over before Mac had the chance to reach for it. He’d barely delivered two sucks to that pulsing cock when Methos groaned and exploded against the back of his throat. 

Hardly surprised by the quick climax, Mac held on, sucking until the organ deflated to something near human size.

Smiling, Mac sat back on his heels, licked his lips and looked up.

Methos’ face was not the peaceful visage he’d hoped and expected it to be. His eyes were scrunched tightly closed, his features a study in torment.

“Methos?” Mac questioned, rising quickly to his feet.

Those eyes opened. MacLeod never wanted to see again such a lost and embarrassed expression on that beloved, too-thin face.

Appearing horribly ashamed, Methos rasped out, “I’m…sorry. I don’t have any control. I….”

“Like I do?” MacLeod interrupted the painful, unnecessary apology. “You gave me what I was hungry for.”

Calming, Methos’ sense of humor rallied, “Much sooner than you were expecting it.”

His first true grin feeling better than an orgasm, Mac relished it and said, “So, make me beg for it next time. You’ve gotten too used to spoiling me.”

“So I did it for your sake then?” Methos questioned, seeming bemused, but delighted by their interplay.

“It certainly felt that way,” MacLeod replied. “Bed?”

Methos nodded and sank almost gratefully onto the mattress behind them. MacLeod followed him in and was struck by a sudden uncertainty. “Which side of the bed is mine?”

Methos sobered at the question. “I usually sleep on the inside. That way if you had to go in the middle of the night, I didn’t get stepped on.”

“Stepped on…but I thought…I mean, I saw the diapers….” MacLeod could feel his face heating.

“You haven’t needed them since December,” Methos informed. “It was strange. The only thing you would do of your own volition was use the facilities.”

“That must have been a relief,” Mac said, wondering that this man would even want him after having performed those kinds of services for him.

To his surprise, there was no immediate, heartfelt agreement. Methos simply said, “It wasn’t a problem, either way. I….” Those troubled eyes met his own as Methos confessed, “I was just glad to have you back alive. I knew the rest would straighten itself out in time.”

“Have I even thanked you for what you did for me?” Mac asked, appalled by his failure.

Methos stiffened, “You don’t need to thank me, Duncan. None of this would have happened to you if it weren’t for me.”

Mac took hold of Methos’ shoulders in a firm grip, trying not to notice how little there was of them in his hands. “Listen to me. You are not responsible for any of this.”

Those dark-bagged eyes remained utterly unconvinced. “I have brought disaster to almost everyone fool enough to love me. You’re just fortunate I didn’t cost you your life this time.”

Shivering, because he could see where this would eventually lead if not nipped in the bud, Mac insisted, “None of this was your fault. This happened because a psychopath couldn’t stop living in the past.”

“I created that psychopath. The responsibility is and ever will be mine.”

Feeling the weight of that sad declaration, Mac stared into those guilt-ridden, exhausted eyes and snapped, “Bullshit. You are not responsible for Longford’s crimes. Yes, you did some terrible things three-thousand years ago, but you have changed your life around completely. You are not evil and you are not responsible for another man choosing to be evil.” 

Perhaps if he’d been less tired, Methos wouldn’t have asked his next question. But the man really was several breaths away from collapsing from exhaustion, so the inquiry came out in the bewildered tone of a hurt child, “If that’s true, then why do I keep being punished? Duncan, every time I try to love, without exception, fate snatches that person away. I have had over sixty wives, and I never buried one of them from old age!”

Mac could see that the moment the words were out, Methos regretted voicing them.

Beginning to finally get a grasp of how this complicated mind worked, MacLeod softly asked, “Do you really think they all died to punish you?”

Though he could see how very much the drained man sitting beside him didn’t want to discuss this, Methos didn’t back away from the subject. Instead, he gave a single, tight nod and lowered his gaze.

MacLeod was quiet for a long moment. There were a dozen platitudes that sprang to his mind that people traditionally offered as comfort when dealing with situations like this, but Mac knew that they would be little recompense to this man who was older than all those adages. Finally, fixing on an argument that might get through, Mac softly questioned, “So, by that logic, you’re suggesting that I’ve done something terrible enough to merit that same punishment – for everyone I’ve ever loved with my entire being died as well…except for you.”

Methos tensed, obviously thrown by his observation. 

When those tormented eyes dared his own again, MacLeod continued, “I know it feels like punishment, but…I think it’s just life, Methos. No man survives untouched by tragedy, not if he really lives the life he’s given…and you have always had the courage to live yours.”

Methos gave a noisy gulp. 

MacLeod could see from the uncertainty in those ravaged features how his friend still doubted, perhaps not even his words, but the fact that he had that kind of courage left at all. Mac couldn’t say he blamed Methos. Cassandra hadn’t lied. Clearly, this ordeal had taken everything Methos had to give. He didn’t have any reserves to fall back upon. Mac searched inside himself and finally found the right words.

“It’s all right. You don’t have to be brave right now. I’ve got enough strength to cover us both for a while.” Recognizing what his lover needed more than anything right now, Mac stood them both up long enough to peel back the light blue duvet. He guided Methos back into the bed and slid in to take his place beside him.

There was no awkwardness this time as he turned to Methos. Gathering the other man into his arm, Mac settled flat on his back with Methos’ long form draped around and on top of him, their usual sleeping position.

If the arms hugging him were tighter than normal, Mac affected not to notice. They were both just aching so much inside that they both needed comfort. This simple contact was what his soul had been hungering for the entire time of his captivity. When the pain would get the worst, he’d always try to imagine himself lying safe in Methos’ arms. Now that he was there, he never wanted to move again. 

His right hand stroked over the cotton Henley covering Methos’ back. MacLeod was still distracted enough to find the differences in texture between where the shirt was heated from Methos skin or damp with perspiration fascinating. And the sensation of their bare, hairy legs meeting was completely absorbing. As he pressed his lips against Methos’ wide brow, MacLeod couldn’t help but think how it truly felt like he was in a new body. Everything seemed to have depths and nuances now that he’d never noticed before.

He was still cataloguing the sensual smorgasbord that was Methos when he felt the other man drop off to sleep. His lips still fastened to that warm, smooth forehead, Mac closed his own eyes and let the wonder of it carry him away.

****************** 

The next few days were a quiet, almost contemplative period for them both. Neither of them seemed inclined to be out of sight of the other for very long. Since Mac seemed equally affected, Methos didn’t worry about it too much. In fact, he was making a conscious effort not to worry about anything for a while. All that crap he’d dumped on poor Duncan his first night back weighed heavy on his conscience, but, strangely enough, it seemed to have brought them closer together.

Like now. They were sitting here at the kitchen table, laughing softly as they fed each other sausages and eggs like honeymooners. He didn’t know how to tell Duncan that it was okay to take the kid gloves off now. He’d been shaky at first, but a few nights of solid, uninterrupted sleep had done wonders for him. The rings had all but disappeared from around his eyes and he hadn’t had a single nightmare in three nights, yet MacLeod was still treating him like he was made of porcelain. Not that it was bad to be so openly cherished, but…Mac was the one who’d just returned from the dead. Methos couldn’t get past the feeling that he should be the one offering the royal treatment.

“More?” Mac questioned, popping a sausage into his mouth and leaving the end dangling out invitingly.

Methos chuckled as MacLeod wagged it at him, giving a firm shake of his head, “No, really. I’ll explode.”

“Grumf…noot…lik…grumf…ly….” Mac mumbled around the sausage.

Finally swallowing the mouthful, MacLeod sobered and softly asked, “Did you eat at all while I was gone?”

Methos felt his own smile drop. “I didn’t have much of an appetite.”

Mac leaned across the table and gave him a slow, greasy, sausage-flavored kiss. 

They were still absorbed in it when Cassandra’s bedroom door opened. Methos was surprised to see her wearing a pair of blue jeans and a plain white blouse that looked more like Grace’s conservative style than this enchantress’ normal alluring attire.

“Good morning,” she greeted, smiling as they parted like guilty schoolboys caught in the act.

“Good morning,” Methos replied, still not accustomed to her being polite to him. He still wasn’t comfortable enough to relax in her presence and joke with her like Mac did so freely.

“Hi, Cassandra,” Duncan said, much less formally as she took a seat at the table. “Did you sleep well?”

She cast a sly glance MacLeod’s way, seeming to wait until he’d taken another mouthful of sausage before answering his solicitous inquiry with a completely sensuous, yet innocently voiced, “Not as well as you, Duncan.”

In five-thousand years, you learned how to duck. Methos was laughing as hard as Cassandra as MacLeod sprayed his half-chewed food all over his plate.

“Cassandra!” the outraged, red-faced Highlander protested.

Sharing a smile with Methos, Cassandra went to the stove to cook her eggs.

“I don’t remember you being so wicked,” MacLeod said, swapping up the mess he’d made with his napkin.

“Then obviously you’re not recalling the nights we shared,” she smiled back over her shoulder at Mac.

Amused, Methos watched his bashful friend turn color again. Mac was just too predictable for words sometimes.

His humor dimmed though as he appreciated how strange this must be for MacLeod, to be here with an old lover sleeping two doors down while his present one slept beside him. That they could joke at all like this was a wonder. When Mac had been courting Amanda, Methos had sometimes managed to tease them, but usually it just hurt too much to be around them. Cassandra didn’t appear to be having that difficulty, thank heavens. Though, if she’d believed that Mac and he were lovers before Bordeaux, she would have had plenty of time to get used to the idea.

Her eggs fried, she returned to the table and sat down beside him.

“I, um, I’m going to be leaving this morning after breakfast,” Cassandra said after a few minutes of contented chewing.

So that explained the conservative outfit. They were her travel clothes.

“What?” Mac said. “So soon?”

Surprised to find that he, too, was reluctant to see her go, Methos waited while she reminded Duncan, “I’ve been here over three weeks now. I have work that calls me back home.”

“What sort of work?” MacLeod questioned. “I haven’t seen you in forever, and you’re barely here before you’re leaving again.”

His sincere regret obviously touched Cassandra. After a moment, she said, “I’d really like to visit with you longer, but it’s too dangerous for me to linger…my work--”

“What do you mean _dangerous_? I don’t understand what work you’re talking about,” Mac said. “Couldn’t you bide a few more days with us?”

Cassandra glanced at Methos and then softly explained, “Duncan, I live in one of the few remnants of old growth forest left in Scotland. Do you think it’s an accident that the developers have overlooked the Donan Woods all these years? Every day I linger puts my home in jeopardy.”

Even now, Methos could see how uncomfortable MacLeod was with the working of the Mystery. Looking adorably befuddled, Mac started, “Well, put that way….”

“I guess you’ll have to leave us,” Methos completed, unable to hold his laughter in when Cassandra’s eyes met his. She was laughing too. 

All too soon, she was finished and in the doorway with her oversized travel bag. 

Mac stepped up to her and gave her one of those amazing bear hugs that Methos would die for. 

“You know I can never thank you or repay you enough for what you did for me – don’t you?” Mac said. “If ever you have need of us….”

Liking that _us_ , Methos finished his choked up lover’s thought with, “We will be there.”

Released from Mac’s arms, Cassandra turned to him.

Even though things were better between them, Methos was still uneasy under her bewitching gaze. 

“I have spent three-thousand years cursing and hating you for the man you were. That hatred blinded me to the man you have become, so…I ask your forgiveness, Methos,” she said softly. He couldn’t imagine how much it had taken for her to voice those words.

“My forgiveness? Cassandra, I…It is I who am sorry. I who needs forgiveness….” he couldn’t finish the thought. His voice just died on him.

After an awkward moment, she reached out to lay both her hands on his shoulders. “Perhaps we should just forgive each other then and have done with it?”

Recognizing that if he didn’t hide his face, he’d be bawling again – and he’d done far too much of that lately – Methos gave her a quick hug and buried his face in her shoulder.

He released her the moment she tried to step back. The supportive hand Mac placed on his back made it plain that he hadn’t been able to entirely hide his reaction.

“Blessings on you both. Love and grow stronger,” Cassandra said.

“Cassandra?” Methos said as she turned to hurry to her car.

“Yes?”

Methos took a deep breath. This was hard. “Would you…would you accept my master’s harp? I can think of none better to entrust it to.”

Giving that away was like offering her a piece of his soul, but…the harp was part of the Mystery and meant to be used. It didn’t belong hidden away from life like its owner’s dry bones. And Methos had always feared it too much to offer it the life it longed for.

He prayed she wouldn’t be insulted by what could be viewed as a trite material reward for the incredible act of kindness she’d shown him.

But apparently, she’d seen him clearer than he’d ever imagined possible.

“I can,” Cassandra countered, her expression a little distracted, as though she were listening to something only she could hear. “That harp chooses its master, Methos. Don’t fear it…or yourself. Mac would not trust his heart to someone unworthy, nor would that harp. Free it…and yourself.”

With that, she reached up on tiptoes, placed a kiss of benediction on his forehead and then scurried to the car.

Stunned, Methos just stood in the shelter of Mac’s arm and watched her drive away. He felt…he didn’t know how he felt. That she had chosen not to take his head was an incredible gift in itself, but not really all that surprising. She was a healer before all else, and those who worked the Mystery on a healing path did not mete out death. That she could offer him forgiveness…that was beyond expectation and he simply didn’t know how to respond to it.

“What was she talking about?” Duncan asked once her car disappeared from sight. “What harp? Methos?”

Shaking his head, Methos slipped out from under Mac’s arm and went back inside. He stopped in the center of the living room and just stood there, not seeing anything around him, feeling only a pressure crushing in on him from all sides.

“Methos?”

When Mac slid his arm around his waist and guided him towards the bedroom, Methos allowed himself to be led. He could feel those worried brown eyes watching him and for the briefest instant, he just wanted to escape. Then MacLeod’s arms closed around him and he was being gathered tight to that strong chest. 

This was what he’d missed the most when Mac was gone or just not himself, this overwhelming empathy Mac had. Though he knew it drove his lover crazy not knowing the cause of his moods, Duncan still instinctively knew how to comfort him. And, the most amazing part of the entire thing was that he never had to ask. Mac was just there, offering whatever he needed.

Today was no different. Once he’d made it plain that he didn’t want to talk about it, Mac just held him and stroked his back, permitting him to soak in the warmth and goodness of MacLeod’s presence without making Methos feel either guilty or needy. And soak it in, he did, feeding on his lover’s strength until it became part of him and started to mutate.

Mac picked up on the transition immediately. Before Methos even knew what he was feeling himself, those full lips were nuzzling his neck and breathing behind his ear, racking him with the most delightful shudders.

“Bed?” Duncan whispered.

As Methos nodded and stepped far enough back to start peeling out of his clothes, he looked at Mac from under his lashes and asked, “How do you always know?”

Mac looked up from undoing his jeans and froze, seeming temporarily distracted by whatever he saw in Methos’ face. 

“How do I know what? And, if you keep looking at me like that, we’re never gonna make it to the bed,” Mac warned with a smoky smile.

Stifling his own grin because he seriously wanted an answer, Methos explained, “Every time you’re holding me like that…and the tide changes from comfort to passion, you’re always right on top of it, even before I go hard. I just wondered how you knew.”

“Ancient Highland secret.” Mac winked at him. 

Methos knew this man. He allowed his face to telegraph his disappointment, making just the tiniest show of trying to hide it, laying heavy on the Adam Pierson persona, and Mac tumbled like one of P. T. Barnum’s marks. 

Looking stricken, MacLeod softly answered, “If you must know, you pull in this little whistlely breath just a few heartbeats before you go hard.”

“You sound like you’ve got me down to a science,” Methos observed, stepping out of his jeans and boxers. It wasn’t like he could make any kind of accusation, not with the way he constantly played upon his lover’s soft heart.

“More like an art.” Shrugging out of his brown shirt, Mac countered, then added in that tone that always brought thick dark chocolate to mind, “And it isn’t like you aren’t a virtuoso yourself.”

Distracted by the sight of all that lovely chest hair being unveiled, Methos hummed, “Hmmm?”

Mac gave a challenging tilt of his eyebrows, smoothed all emotion from his face, and then peeked up at Methos from beneath the fan of his dark lashes, just as Methos had done to him a moment ago.

Pole axed, Methos just gaped. 

Seeing how he’d unnerved him, the now naked MacLeod stepped into his personal space, spicing the warm air between them with the fresh scent of his flesh. “Don’t get too worried. The only time I’m ever certain you’re doing it is when you give me _that_ Bambi look.”

“Bambi….” Methos repeated, horrified, and then he was chuckling, because it was impossible not to when Mac threw that come-hither expression back at him. “You’re over-playing it. You need to lighten up on the eyelash batting.”

“I didn’t--” Seeing that he was joking, Mac erupted into that earthy laugh that fed Methos’ very soul.

Then their mouths met and all laughter stopped. 

These last few days, everything had been so careful and gentle between them. They’d loved, but Cassandra’s presence in the next room had made them somewhat self-conscious. Also, neither of them had been themselves. They were still moving with care around each other, as if afraid that one impetuous move might rip them asunder again.

Methos wrapped his arms around MacLeod, breathing in the sweet, living scent of his flesh as he pressed his own naked front against his partner. Almost more than anything, he loved the feel of that soft-furred chest against his own near-smoothness.

When that heavy cock nudged his balls, Methos’ breath caught in his lungs with an almost painful hitch. 

Mac’s hands were moving down his back, stroking his ass with more heat than he’d exhibited since Cassandra had returned him to Methos. Equally incited, Methos’ own palms did a reconnaissance of his lover’s broad back. After all the massages he’d given these past few months, Methos was intimately familiar with every ripple and vertebrae. 

He allowed his hands to slip lower, onto the velvet softness of those perfect globes. 

Mac broke from their kiss with a gasp as Methos gave those lush mounds a squeeze. 

“Methosssss….” Mac hissed. Sidling them around, the Highlander tumbled them over onto the bed.

As usual, Methos twisted midair, making sure he fell at an angle. One of these days Mac was going to get a rude surprise when he pulled Methos down like that and ended up with a knee in his groin. But not today. Methos was still enough in his right mind to avert disaster, but not for long.

Horizontal, they fed on each other like starved wolves, licking, kissing and nuzzling every inch of skin that came into range. Methos worked his way down that sculpted chest, nosing through the fuzzy chest hair, licking along the sexy trail that arrowed down to Mac’s groin…where his favorite prize awaited him. 

Without preamble, Methos swallowed that bulging cock, inhaling the inimitable musk that never failed to bypass every rational impulse he owned. While he worked that meaty shaft, Methos’ fingers made free with those dark, tight pubic curls, following them down to the tightening sacs below. Mac groaned deep and low as he played there, those powerful thighs splaying apart as Mac’s hips arched up at him and just about speared the cock in Methos’ mouth down to his intestines.

“Please…Methos….”

“Mmmm?” he made as coherent a request for information as he could, considering the fire in his veins and the cock rammed down his throat.

“Please?” Mac spread his legs a little wider and lifted up again.

Methos’ body comprehended the language being spoken here long before his mind caught up. When he finally understood, he froze a little and lifted his head from his service.

Mac’s eyes were glittering like black opals, his entire slick with sweat, his face lined with need.

Wondering if his lover knew what his body was requesting, Methos lowered his head and nuzzled his way down that tasty cock again, venturing past the tightening sacs to the of perineum. He shifted his lover’s legs around, to open him up wider. When there was no protest, he plunged in whole-heartedly. Mac’s vocalizations reached a new plane of need as he licked and teased that sensitive strip of flesh between testes and anus. 

By force of his own facial anatomy, he was exploring his intended target before his mouth even got there. Every time he made a downwards lick along Mac’s perineum, the tip of his nose nudged that hidden, tight rose of muscle that Methos had so rarely explored. And every time that beak he called a nose did so, Mac grunted like he’d taken a punch…or a direct shot of ecstasy to his most vulnerable center.

Mac loosed a piercing scream when his tongue finally found that spot. 

Taking in Mac’s wild state of arousal, Methos did his level best to drive his friend straight into the stratosphere. It wasn’t a long trip. He’d barely rimmed Mac when the man was whimpering, slick preseminal fluid leaking from the tip of his cock like blood from a wound. The sounds his companion was emitting had that quality of pained delight to them, like if things didn’t move soon, this dazzling pleasure might bleed over into agony.

Methos hesitated. Moving things along entailed entering territory he’d only ventured into once or twice before. His tongue had slicked that steamy entrance as much as it could. More stimulation was going to require something more momentous than mere rimming. But…it wasn’t like he was a complete stranger to this land, Methos reminded himself. Mac had accepted his fingers here before, insinuating them again wouldn’t be an unforgivable liberty.

Methos reached out to snag the balsam-scented massage oil from the nightstand, making certain he caught Mac’s eye as he did so.

“All right?” he grated out. Recognizing that he might just have well have voiced the request in ancient Babylonian, for all his partner appeared to comprehend it, he added some firmness to his tone, “Duncan, okay?”

Blinking, as though startled to find that there still was a world around him and he existed somewhere other than inside the sensual delight of his flesh, Mac grunted out something that might have been, “Yes.”

“Yes to what?” Methos questioned, his own controls too chancy to risk making any decisions here.

“Just…yes….” Mac moaned.

Like that was a help, Methos fretted. He knew Mac was out of his head at the moment. A court of law would never certify the Highlander in his right mind…and Methos didn’t want to make the kind of mistake here that a court of law would be needed to clear up.

So, he opened the massage oil, slathered his right middle and index fingers with it, dribbled some down the steamy, marvelous crack that was the focus of his universe at the minute, took a deep breath, that in no way calmed him and reached out a quivering finger for that dark budded opening.

It was like plunging into pure nirvana, Methos thought, his breath catching as that virgin channel blossomed around him, sucking him in instead of trying to repel him. There was no sense to the way his body lit up at the insertion of a single finger an inch or so into his lover’s body. Methos’ cock had pierced others and brought him less joy. Just knowing that it was Duncan opening around him and letting this small part of him in made it all unbearably intense.

But Methos persevered, teasing his way further and further in till he came to that round nub that was his own favorite means of attaining an alternate sense of reality. With the utmost care, he pressed against that precious spot. Mac bucked under him, loosing the most shiversome groan.

A maestro at this art, Methos played that one note symphony until Mac was mindless with want. Only then did he slip a second finger in. Though probably not even noteworthy of an historical footnote anywhere outside of the MacLeod Chronicles, Methos still felt like he’d just conquered Everest.

Finding that two definitely doubled the pleasure, Methos took his time, accustoming Mac’s body to the wider bulk, scissoring his fingers open, widening Mac to the most possible extension…for an act he hadn’t permission to perform.

Sobbing in frustration, Methos slowly slid his fingers out. Wrapping them around that meaty cock, he had started to guide it to his mouth, when Mac’s hand intercepted him.

“No,” Mac rasped.

“What?” He was too strung out for his normal patience. It had been so long since they’d touched with this kind of passion that it was all he could do to hold himself together.

Mac’s fingers reached out to undo the pony tail at he back of his head, letting the disorderly hair fall around his shoulders. His lover stroked the annoyingly long locks back from his cheek and quietly said, “No more putting things off, Methos. All right?”

All right? It was like asking a drowning man if oxygen would be to his liking. But….

Once things progressed to a certain point, there would be no turning back. He wanted to take Mac for the first time on a night when he had some self-control, not their first real time alone together when he was bouncing off the walls, his emotions totally out of whack.

“Maybe…maybe we should wait…” Methos stammered.

He’d thought MacLeod too far gone for any true emotional clarity, but Duncan framed his cheeks, his gaze hot, but understanding as he whispered, “If you think there’s ever gonna be a time I’ll need you more, you’re mistaken. Now, Methos, please?”

This possibly the last thing he could ever envision Duncan MacLeod begging him for, Methos tried to swallow around the Gibralter-sized lump in his throat and nodded.

Hit with an unmistakable case of stage fright, Methos returned his fingers to that sweet opening. He expected Mac to tense up, now that it was for real, but his friend just lay there with his legs widely extended, watching Methos’ face with a hunger that was only adding to his nervousness. 

Methos had never felt under such pressure. If he mucked this up, he could damage their relationship forever. So…he would be damn sure he got it right. That was all there was to it.

His fingers slipped back inside, priming Mac with a patience he’d believed beyond himself. Methos worked until he felt he could get his entire fist up his friend if he had to before he withdrew this time.

Taking a deep breath, he met Mac’s passion-dazed gaze. He’d wanted to suggest an easier position, but…the way MacLeod was observing him, Methos could tell his lover was getting as much stimulation from the visual as the sensual input. Honoring that need, Methos recognized that he was just going to have to keep himself very firmly in check.

Right. He was going to have the kind of control to do this properly the first time they’d made uninhibited love in more than a year, at a time when Methos could barely go half a day without bawling over something or the other. But that was what he was going to have to do.

He couldn’t remember a time he was so frightened in a sexual situation as the moment he finally he pressed his cock-head against that slick sphincter muscle.

Both he and Duncan drew a deep breath at the same instant. Their gazes locking, Mac nodded.

Methos gave the slightest push forward, just enough to get his tip through that suddenly, incredibly tiny passageway. He heard the gasp Mac gave, felt the instinctive tensing around him, but he was prepared for it. His hand found that powerful shaft and pumped it to straining fullness. As those more familiar pleasures flooded Mac’s system, Methos felt the tract around him loosen up.

Thinking that maybe this might work after all, Methos slid that much further into his lover…and groaned in despair as he felt that energy conduit that Cassandra had named the Forging open up between them.

He wasn’t ready for this. He couldn’t simultaneously deal with it and penetrating Duncan for the first time.

“No,” Methos sobbed, trying to pull back from it, but he couldn’t because it was as much a part of him as his cock was. And it was buried even deeper in MacLeod’s body than that eager organ would ever go.

“It’s okay,” Mac croaked, his enjoyment of the experience seeming amplified by the arrival of their freaky connection. “Don’t fight it. Please….”

He was putting his cock up the man’s virgin ass. Mac could have asked for his head at that point and Methos would have gladly handed him his katana. But…this was harder. There was still so much he hadn’t discussed with Duncan, the inappropriate liberties he had taken after their daily massage session for starters, but Mac seemed eager for the union and…how could he refuse the man, just three days back from the walking dead?

So for once, Methos didn’t even haggle over it. Bracing himself, he lowered his defenses and let Mac plunge into him on a psychic level, the way he was entering Duncan on the physical plane. The usual expanding of the senses to two skins came first, but Mac seemed frantic to touch his emotions and mind and accelerated the blending.

As the intimacy increased, his cock shriveled inside Mac as terror clenched him up in a manner Duncan’s untouched body should have been reacting, but wasn’t.

And Duncan reached out for him like he had that last night on the barge after Longford’s challenge, instinctively mastering the intricacies of this contact. Where the reassurance came from, Methos didn’t know, for the instant they touched, he could sense that Mac wasn’t his usual certain self. Methos was stunned by how much fresh sorrow the spirit that touched his carried. 

Mac’s pain luring him out of his own insecurities, Methos cast a questioning feeling his lover’s way. The guilt there…he could have been touching his own soul. Mac had kept it to himself until Methos sent out that query, but the instant Methos asked for it, Duncan’s barriers crumbled. Ritchie’s death came through first, as an impotent, raging, kind of guilt. But Methos sensed that there was something troubling Duncan even more below that. When he looked, he found it to be his own depleted state that was hurting Mac as his guilt-prone lover took responsibility for the ravages this dark period had made on Methos’ flesh.

Appalled to be part of that pain, Methos drew Mac in closer, letting him see that it really didn’t matter, that he could have lost a pound of flesh, a limb or his balls again and he would have counted it worthwhile, as long as they ended up together in the end.

Lulled by the ability to offer some form of solace to his recently healed love, Methos relaxed ever so slowly. His whole being turned into the emotional equivalent of a smile when he felt MacLeod’s joy as Methos’ cock expanded within him again.

Taking Mac on the physical plane and simultaneously dealing with this psychic link lent a surreal quality to the entire experience. Methos could feel the energy of the Forging sparking around them in the bedroom in the remembered faux Quickening. 

_How can you not fear this_ , Methos thought. He hadn’t intended it to, but the question spilled over into their link, and he heard/felt MacLeod’s spontaneous reply,

_Because it’s you._

The degree of trust Mac bore him was mind-boggling. Their recent side trips into Methos’ past having reminded him how dangerous it was for anyone to love him, Methos wanted to scream, _don’t trust me so_ , and, of course, the moment he thought it the thought was there for Duncan to see. And when the inevitable _why_ was issued in return, Methos was placed in the awkward position of having to block or lie…or do the unthinkable and allow Mac to see everything.

Methos could feel his lover watching him wrestle his demons. That night after Longford, it was here that MacLeod had taken the reins and forced the issue. Methos tensed, waiting for that to happen again, but Mac remained in that surface level of initial contact, allowing Methos to make the decision.

Feeling how much Duncan really wanted to touch him that deeply, Methos almost balked. He didn’t know how far even Duncan’s acceptance could be pushed. In some ways, when Mac had taken those memories of Death from him, it had been easier, for Methos truly had been an entirely different man back then. But to show Mac how the Methos he thought trustworthy had betrayed Artos and led sweet Michel to his death…and then to have Duncan learn that MacLeod himself had been these men in another turn of the wheel of life…how could he expect Duncan to understand any of that? How could Mac possibly continue to love him after seeing all that? And he hadn’t even addressed the impropriety of touching Mac without his permission after those massage sessions….

Cold with fear, ready to just throw in the towel completely, Methos’ distracted mind caught hold of a thought/feeling that Mac clearly hadn’t intended to share. It was flavored with the same loathsome self-doubt Methos was gripped with, but all the more touching because Duncan had no true cause to doubt himself. Yet there it was, the most agonizingly intense _what more can I possibly give to make him trust me_ feeling Methos had ever experienced.

Feeling all the hurt Duncan had been struggling to rise above these last three days pounding at his lover behind the bitterest one that he’d caught, Methos felt as though his entire being might crumble. It was one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t conundrums that added up to what everything in Methos’ life normally did…he was damned. 

If he let Mac in, his friend would lose all respect for him, because he couldn’t blame any of these errors on his alter ego. It was just Methos mucking his life up royally as usual, destroying everyone who’d ever been foolish enough to love him.

But if he didn’t let Mac in, Duncan was going to believe that he didn’t trust him. He would be rejecting his lover while the man was gifting him with his virginity. It didn’t get much lower than that. 

Given the choice of whom to hurt, Methos made the only decision possible. He lowered his barriers and let that uncertain man come tumbling over.

It was a lot to take in. Methos offered up his most recent indiscretion first, showing Mac how he’d fellated him after their daily massage. But, to his astonishment, Mac didn’t brand him a fiend or molester. There was something like laughter and the mental echo of _the only bright spot in the day_ , with all merriment cutting off abruptly when Methos showed Mac the path this strange connection had taken. Duncan’s shock as Methos detailed the progression of lives he’d witnessed playing out was a palpable presence. When Methos came to the point where he himself showed up in Mac’s memories of Michel, Duncan seemed stunned beyond thought. 

The last was the hardest. Artos, the king of kings, whom Cassandra claimed to have been Duncan as well -- a fact that Methos’ soul acknowledged as truth. He almost didn’t show Mac that, but…once started, he wanted it all out there. If Mac were going to leave him, he might as well know it all. So he let Duncan see how he’d betrayed Artos and brought civilization in his beloved Wales crashing down around them. 

And then…Methos took the equivalent of a mental step back and just waited to see what form the inevitable rejection would take, fleeing almost all the way back to his own body and mind.

There was too much of the coward in him to even try to follow Mac’s thought processes. He could sense his friend trying to absorb it all. Stars knew, it was more than any one soul should carry.

Methos was prepared for anything, except, of course, what happened. Tears…how often had he seen this man cry?

At first, he panicked, believing that he’d hurt Mac too much…but then those strong arms were holding him closer and Duncan was begging to be let in again through the Forging…and his own body was supercharged by the burst of sheer, unadulterated love that rocked through him…and he was inside Duncan taking him, or may Duncan was inside him, taking him…Methos didn’t know and it no longer mattered because….

Because he was finally home. Their love might be ended with a headhunter’s sword, but if Duncan could still love and want him after seeing all that…then Methos knew they’d last.

The energies coursing through them joined and flared, as their bodies exploded in joy. Methos could see the lightning bolts flashing through their room, could feel that blended power strengthening him and Mac the way taking a head would…and more, he could feel it healing some of the hurt. It wasn’t exactly gentle, but it cauterized all those old bleeding memories and the more recent scars from the ordeal of Mac’s abduction and recovery to the point where the burden was bearable.

When the Forging passed with the cessation of their orgasms, a quiet descended between them.

His racing heart stilling, Methos lay there in the sunny bedroom and listened as his companion’s ragged breathing settled into something near normal. He couldn’t help but recall the last time they’d touched this way. He’d been so afraid of what Duncan would think of him afterwards, but today…he met his lover’s gaze almost eagerly.

Those incredible brown eyes were still bright with tears. Methos licked them away and then spent an eternity relearning every nuance and flavor of that luscious mouth.

Realizing that his flaccid cock was still half in Duncan, Methos carefully pulled out, wincing at Mac’s inevitable hiss.

“It gets easier,” Methos promised, his voice thick as Mac’s had been when he first awoken three days ago.

Not understanding the happy chuckle Mac gave, Methos asked, “What?”

“After all those months I spent agonizing over…doing it that way….” MacLeod began.

“Yes?” Methos encouraged, feeling too buoyed by their cathartic union to even feel a frisson of worry.

“The actual act was almost an anticlimax – no offense,” Mac quickly covered.

Methos smiled, his heart twisting in chest at the gift this beautiful man had just given him. “None taken. And just for the record…it didn’t feel that way from this end. It… _you_ were sublime.”

Mac’s cheeks turned a totally charming pink as he yawned and stretched out on the bed beside him, just glowing with health and contentment.

After a minute of open snuggling, Mac looked down at him and said, “This past life stuff…it’s true?”

Methos was silent for a moment. “I don’t know about Artos, but Cassandra would have no reason to lie about it. As for Michel…I saw that myself. You had to have been there.”

No doubt recalling what he’d seen of that tragic story’s ending from Methos’ mind, a deep sorrow touched Mac’s eyes. “You loved him so much…suffered so terribly….”

“That was a long time ago, Mac.”

“What does it all mean?”

Sobering, Methos held that pained gaze and warned, ““I don’t know. All I do know is that…every time you’ve loved me, it has destroyed you.”

“Not this time,” Mac said, bending down to kiss Methos until his senses were reeling again. Glorious romantic that he was, Mac seemed touched by what he’d learned, rather than alarmed like any sensible man would be. The fire that had attracted Methos to him rallying in his exhausted eyes and tone, MacLeod proclaimed, “This time we’re gonna get it right. We’re gonna find that happy-ever-after.”

The cynic in Methos wanted to protest, but…against all odds and logic, Duncan was still in his bed, still loving him. Faced with this uncontestable miracle, who was he to doubt?

His heart lighter than he ever remembered it, Methos cuddled closer to the sleepy warmth of Duncan MacLeod and kissed the man again.

He wasn’t sure where the spin of the wheel of life would leave them this time, but…casting his sleepy sight to the future, the one thing he did clearly see was Duncan beside him. Assured of that one reality, none of the rest really mattered. 

Settling down on the pillow beside his already drifting love, Methos closed his eyes to sleep the deepest sleep he’d enjoyed in more than three millennia.

The Beginning


End file.
